A Necessary Step

I am ready to take a Big Step! For the past several years I have served as a Child Care Health Consultant in the Healthy Child Care Ohio program at Nationwide Children's Hospital. It has been a wonderful opportunity! I am very thankful for friendships made, skills acquired and insights gained. For the past few months I have sensed that I need to put all my time and effort toward Chloe's Place. I'll be making that transition mid-June.

I did not make the decision lightly or without careful planning. My husband supports this step of faith, I know that is a blessing in itself. We are trusting that we will be able to raise adequate support for Chloe's Place by the end of the year enabling us to have salaried staff. At that time I will have an income again.

Today I ran into a dear friend from my 'community health nurse' days. I was so encouraged by her response to my brief description of Chloe's Place! She interacts with young single moms daily in her work ... she knows the impact we will be able to make.

I'm always very excited to get the opportunity to share our vision for Chloe's Place and the progress we are making toward our goal. Today I had the opportunity to speak briefly to 35 women at my home church as part of the WM Spring Luncheon. My assigned topic was actually "My Spiritual Journey in Ministry", but certainly the calling and vision to this ministry is part of that.

I had a small display table with some brochures, business cards and a simple power point looping for interested persons to see. I was encouraged by the kind words of affirmation and the interest expressed in Chloe's Place by several of the women in attendance. It was meaningful for me to have my home church be the first to have a formal preview of Chloe's Place.

I look forward to scheduling frequent information sharing brunches or luncheons in the near future. I hesitate only because it seems premature until we have our house and office space nailed down. In the mean time there is plenty to do!

And the Work Goes On

My excitement for the ministry potential for Chloe's Place continues to grow!
I have been keeping quite busy lately with behind the scenes projects. In my last blog I mentioned I had completed the first draft of the Policy Manual. Since that time I have been working on the Program Manual. The contents were largely donated by Hope House of Colorado, but still every page (300+) needed to be reviewed and adapted to fit our program. Some pages required simply inserting our name, but other pages need bigger changes due to differences in our programs, such as ages of clients served. My friend Renee had offered to scan the pages and convert them to a Word document, but once I started keying in the information I was hooked! I loved reading each page and making it our own. The program is so detailed and specific it was a great exercise for me to really learn it by that 'hands on' process.That manual is now complete!
Another big project that is in the works is our CHLOE,Inc website. It has been woefully neglected over the past number of months. It not only needs updated but re-designed to accommodate the full spectrum of information about Chloe's Place. When the 're-construction" is complete potential clients and volunteers will be able to download information and applications, donors will be able to support us on-line, links to resources will be updated, and new developments will be reported in a timely manner. All of the changes in the basic design have been submitted, so hopefully we will have the expansion and changes made before too long. (www.chloeinc.org) It may take a bit longer to get the interactive pieces in place. I will need to find a volunteer to help me with the items that require technical skill.
Tonight I attended the Opening...Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of a new Free Clinic; a ministry of Victory Ministries, in Columbus. What an exciting moment to see their work unveiled as people waited for the ribbon to be cut, so they could be served by the medical team that was in place! I look at 'ministries' through a different lens than I did before I plunged into CHLOE, then Chloe's Place. Victory Ministries is definitely a fine organization that honors God and serves people with
uncommon love and grace. I hope we will have the opportunity to learn from them.

Progress Report

Establishing a new program having the depth and breadth of Chloe's Place takes a long time!
We have been researching, planning and networking for the past 15 months. There have been times of exciting progress and other times that require patient waiting. During the 'waiting' times, I actually remain quite busy.
Lately I have been working on Policies for Chloe's Place. We have the incredible advantage of having permission to adapt the Hope House of Colorado policies. Beyond that I have studied various regulations specific to Ohio residential programs and reviewed health and safety specific policies. Yesterday I completed the first draft of Chloe's Place Policy Manual. It is about 30 pages long and will be expanded a bit.
Today I have enjoyed spending most of the afternoon and evening designing a PowerPoint presentation that will be used to introduce groups to our work. I am happy with how it looks, now I just have script it, so other members of our leadership team can present it.
Last night I enjoyed an evening celebrating the work being done at The Women's Clinic of Columbus. The event was well attended, I hope they raised funds to meet the goals they had set. I met with TWC Executive Director a few weeks ago. TWC is all about helping women through the difficult transition of accepting an unplanned pregnancy. They offer free pregnancy test and ultrasounds. Peer coaches help their clients explore their options and walk them through the process. Part of the program included an introduction of several young women and their newborns who were helped by TWC in the past few months. My heart was touched by their stories. I was elated to think that we will soon have the capacity to help young women that need help toward self-sufficiency after their babies are born!