In 1998-2001, we carried out ‘The Third Way of God for the Homeless’ program. Our goal was to show people who became homeless for some reasons, that apart from continuing their wandering and inhuman lifestyle or committing suicide there was another way, the Third Way of God, which was the promise of restoration.
With the help of our Professional Team (a psychologist, a social worker, a pedagogue), during around 3 years of constant work we succeeded to take tens of people, who were homeless for 7-9 years, out of their depression, and to return them to normal life.
With the efforts of the Ministry, they found jobs, and 9 of them received apartments in Yerevan as a gift.
TESTIMONIES
My husband was in prison, and I was turned out into the street with 4 non-aged children. The parents and relatives of both my husband’s and mine turned their backs on us. They were tired of supporting us. Several times, I tried to commit suicide, but by the will of God, I survived.
For a long time we lived on streets, both in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer. We were begging from door to door. One time, when I knocked at another door to ask for food or money, the hostess, a young woman, invited us in and asked who we were and how came we lived that way. Listening to my story, she reassured me that there is God and He has not forsaken us. I understood that I needed to repent and ask God to help us out of that hopeless situation.
In a couple of days, this young woman with volunteers from “Go and See” Mercy Ministry visited us. They prepared a place where we could not only sleep safely, but also to take a bath and have food. When we went there, the Mercy Ministry volunteers welcomed us warmly and invited us to have a dinner. My children had already forgotten how a hot meal tasted. In addition to having a meal in a fitting manner, taking a bath and putting our new beautiful clothes, we had opportunity to have physical examination.
Praise the Lord for the Mercy Ministry Team! Their professionals – the psychologist, the social worker and the pedagogue, worked with us for around 3 years, helping us to forget offences and cruelties of the past, to repent from our sins and to eradicate the reasons because of which we had become beggars. They did not blame us, but helped us to change our mentality and character, so that later in life our situation would have not repeated itself. In 3 years, we received a beautiful apartment as a gift, in a district and an apartment house, which we chose ourselves.
Today my family is happy, as my husband has been released from prison, my children go to school, we have a job and we care for our needs. We thank God that He had the Third Way, – a way of happiness, – for us. We thank the Mercy Ministry Team for taking all the troubles, so that we could forget our cruel past.
Svetlana Alaverdyan