The generational cycle of poverty. Evette didn’t know it, but her family was a living definition of that unhappy phrase. “I grew up on welfare,” Evette says simply. “We always had no clothes, no shoes.”

 

Evette’s father was killed by rival gang members, just one symptom of the larger turmoil in the family. Another terrible symptom was Evette’s abuse by a family member, and how that family member introduced her to marijuana at age eight, “to help me deal with what he was doing to me.”

 

With that background, it’s no wonder Evette lost all self-esteem in a fog of addiction. She became pregnant at 17 and lived with her boyfriend in a series of rat- and roach-infested apartments as he sold drugs to make money. Trying to be nice, she’d let friends and family stay, too. But when rent came due, no one would help, and finally Evette knew it was time to get herself and her kids out. Not only was her life following the same sad path so common in her family, but she witnessed her children growing up in an environment that would trap them as well.

 

“I cried and cried and prayed and poured myself out,” Evette says of the week she spent in a hotel calling local shelters. She found a place here at Joy House and soon was discovering a whole new way to think and live through the New Life program. Your gifts to MRM helped provide this transforming opportunity.

 

“The teacher was so open, you could ask her anything, and if she didn’t know she’d find the answer,” she says. “I really liked that all of the classes were biblically based. I learned that anything you need is in the Bible. Slowly but surely my spirit was growing.”

 

Once she completed New Life, Evette faced the choice of moving into her own housing, or learning more life skills in our Fresh Start program. “I had a choice to change my situation, or to change my life.”  Evette chose to continue her journey towards a new life by staying at the Milwaukee Rescue Mission and participating in Fresh Start, our transitional living program for families.

 

She’s putting the extra time you’ve provided her to good use. “We are a happier family now,” Evette says joyfully. “I’ve become a different person; I’ve become what God wants me to be, not what the world made me to be. God is my shield, my protector and my strength, and no one can take that away from me.”

 

Now Evette lives in the hope of creating brand new family traditions for her children--traditions of success, education, stability and faith in Christ. And it isn’t only her children who’ve benefited! Evette is glad to say that her sister has also accepted Christ.

 

“God bless all those who give,” Evette says. “It’s an investment in my life and in my future, and your investments trickle down.” Thank you for giving Evette--and her children--the tools to break the cycle forever!

 

[“Her children arise and call her blessed.” -Proverbs 31:28, NIV]