He Thought Heaven Was Closed to Him

YHOH is a nonprofit. We are not a religious organization. But anyone who knows me knows I don't hide my faith, and my faith has never depended on an organization. It goes where I go.

Years ago, before YHOH was what it is now, it took me to a men's shelter on Van Buren. I taught a Bible study there. Church on the Street. A room full of men the world had already written off.

One night, after the message, a young man came up to me. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. Teary-eyed, carrying something heavy. He said the thing he was most sure of in the world.

"I'll never get into heaven. Because I'm gay."

I didn't argue with him. I didn't correct him. I told him to sit down and tell me his story.

He was raised in foster care. Passed from family to family, never kept long. Somewhere in those homes, he was abused- a child handed to the people who were supposed to protect him, and they broke him instead. Then he aged out with no family and no address, and the first person to offer him a roof did it to use him. When that ended, home became the shelter.

That kid broke my heart. Not only for what he had been through. For what he walked in believing. Certain Christians had taught him he was damned, flat out, because he was gay. That was what he brought to the table, and it was the thing he was surest of.

I sat there fighting back tears. He told me details that night that I will not put on this page. No child should carry a story like his, and no child should carry it alone.

So I told him the truth. The Lord knows the whole story. Every home he was passed through, every hand that hurt him. And he is loved. Not damned. Loved.

Then I hugged him, and he wept.

That's what changed me. Not a strategy meeting. Not a mission statement. Him.

We started YHOH to help the homeless, and we did, with love. But it was him at that table, and then every young man like him I kept meeting, that turned our hearts. So many of them shared one thing. They had aged out of foster care and landed on the street.

My partners, Robyn and Joel, saw the same thing. I own a consulting firm. Joel is retired. Robyn is a practicing attorney. None of us are professional fundraisers. We are people who couldn't look away, and we got behind this mission one hundred percent. I am grateful for them every day.

We are nobody to judge anybody, for any reason. We are here to love people.

Where your giving goes

Nobody at YHOH takes a salary, and we do not have a building. What you give goes to young people like him, here in Arizona.

If you want to be part of it, give, or partner with us.

Shalom, Shalom.