Dear Friends of Joseph House: To be homeless means more than just being without shelter. It means to go without everything implied by the word “home.” Imagine not having a bed to sleep in or a bathroom to use. Imagine not having a kitchen, with no refrigerator or freezer to store your food and no…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: Here we are in the middle of winter, and although it can be a dreary time of year, there are also treasures to behold, such as the pale colors of the winter sky and the muffled stillness of freshly fallen snow. When we are out and about in the frosty…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: When someone is homeless, he or she needs many things. At the Joseph House, we can’t do everything, but one service we do provide is laundry. We have to set limits since we only have one washer and dryer in our Hospitality Room, but we try to give each person…
Our work at the Joseph House is like farming in that we plant seeds, although we don’t always see how they grow. Once in a while, however, we get a glimpse of how a seed planted has taken root and flourished. Carla used to come to our Hospitality Room off and on for a fair…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: January is a hopeful time. We open a new calendar and all the empty spaces are there waiting to be filled in. The year is fresh and each day a new possibility. Maybe this is the year we will keep our resolutions. January is also the middle of the cold…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: In 1944, a letter was printed in the Stars and Stripes newspaper that contained the following: It is 0200 hours and I have been lying awake for an hour listening to the steady even breathing of the other three nurses in the tent, thinking about some of the things we…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: How many times a day do we look in the mirror? Some people more than others perhaps, but we all need to check our appearance now and then. Catherine Doherty, the founder of Madonna House, realized these are opportunities to help people see so much more: At Madonna House, we…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: Across the land, we see a transformation taking place: buds forming on tree branches, birds chirping in the early morning light, delicate sprouts poking through the earth. After a long winter of nor’easters and arctic cold, Spring is on the way. Our fussing and self-importance do nothing to bring this…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: Home is where our story begins. If this is true for us then it was true for Jesus when He walked the earth, born into the family of Mary and Joseph. He lived in a home created by His parents in the town of Nazareth. The house itself was likely…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: A few years ago, Fr. Paul Mast, a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Wilmington, spent a six-month sabbatical immersed in the lives of people living on the streets. The experience spoke to his heart, and he wrote about what he learned in a book called Street Sabbatical. In one…