Chapter 76
Janie’s Thoughts…
The Lord brought me to Branson a few weeks ahead of the family to start my job. Jim and some of the kids stayed behind to make some needed repairs and complete the sale of the house. Our plan was not to bring most of our things to Branson until the house sold. Branson Music network, my employer, provided a hotel room for me until the family arrived. On weekends we began looking for a home in Branson, but just as the family was ready to make the move, the radio station manager was leaving a condo lease early and offered for us to finish paying out the last 6 months of his lease. It was a beautiful, spacious, furnished two-bedroom resort condominium; one bedroom was again large enough for the children to line up their 5 beds, so we agreed to the offer. At the time we felt that this arrangement would allow us a chance to determine where we would purchase a home, but we later saw god’s purpose for providing the provision of just a six month lease.
Branson is a small city tucked away in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Over the years it has become a popular tourist destination known for mostly family entertainment of all kinds. As an Account executive for Branson Music network radio station, I had been handling theater accounts, and we were seeing shows free as often as we desired. Jim got a job working with special needs Children at the local schools, and life was peaceful and good. We knew that the condominium was to be a temporary situation while we decided if we would be staying in Branson or some other place. However, when the condo came up for renewal, we decided it was in our hearts to head back to the gulf Coast. It was just after Christmas and before new year’s. We knew that the ordeal was finally over, and we were looking forward to getting back home and seeing the next step the Lord had for us.
As it was shared in the opening of this book, the day we were both to depart for the Mississippi gulf Coast, plans were interrupted. Jim and three of the children left Branson early that morning in our conversion van, pulling our trailer. I was to follow later that day after turning in the key and finishing some last minute work at my office. As the afternoon came, a winter snowstorm presented itself, and I knew the only safe solution was to stay at a hotel for the night. Bran-son and the surrounding area are mountainous with few guardrails to protect vehicles from sliding off of roadways during Icy conditions. In fact, that very day I had slid down one road and fortunately came to stop on a very small curb. That was enough sliding for me. Jim made it home safely, but we both realized that it could easily be days before Kellie, Chris, and I could safely make the trip. We were concerned about the cost of the hotel and meals. I was praying in the hotel room when I remembered Mary spralling. I had only met Mary once, when I first came to town, and the children had come from Lawson without their warm coats. The radio station that I worked for told me about Mary, a lady who ran a used clothing give-away program to help those in need. At that time the kids were certainly in need, so I called her and got the kids some coats. I had not thought about Mary since that day six months earlier. But here we were again in need, and maybe Mary would again know a solution. I found her number in the phonebook and made the call. I could not believe what she told me. She was now operating a shelter for women, with a ministry to the homeless of Branson. So, because of the storm and the kindness of Mary, I ended up at a women’s homeless shelter.
For the first time I was able to truly see and understand the homeless situation from the side of families that were homeless. I learned that many of America’s homeless are not homeless by choice as many people think. National statistics surprisingly show that many homeless are families with children. Now, that does not seem like it would be a problem in a successful area like Branson, but quite the opposite is true. During show season the area does prosper, but in the winter the area closes down because the hard freezing weather makes the mountain roads too dangerous for travel due to Icy conditions. A very few theaters try to pay their people year-round even though they are closed. This policy is definitely honorable but must be very difficult on theater owners. Just a few theaters attempt to stay open year-round. The majority of owners elect to lay-off their employees. Musicians, actors, dancers, stagehands, and others, many with families, live off of food stamps and what unemployment compensation they can get. A few end up on the streets because money just will not stretch. Even if they have housing, they are living by poverty standards.
Mary had such a burden for these people, and was trying to help as many as she could. She had joined with a larger ministry for a season to help with finances. This ministry was asking for help via television and was trying to get support in raising the wages paid to theater help during the season to help offset the lack during the winter. Mary approached the churches to help, but very few did anything considerable.
What a wonderful ministry Mary had. God truly touched my heart while I stayed at her home. After the storm subsided, about 10 days later, I headed south to Mississippi with Kellie and Christopher where my husband Jim and I would start all over again on the Mississippi gulf Coast, continuing to walk and live by faith, the kind that was first given to the saints of old.
Janie continues…
It was shortly after we arrived in Branson that I was praying and asking the Lord why He had taken us to Lawson. But it was 6 months later, interestingly, while I was at the homeless shelter in Branson that the Lord revealed to me the title for this book, Homeless by god’s Design. Jim and I had never considered that god would ask us to document this whole experience by writing a book. In fact, had we not kept journals we would have had difficulty in writing the details of our story, and I must say I would personally have kept better journals and photos had I known. God had written a book with our lives, through our experiences. Hopefully, in days to come, this book may serve as a guiding light of hope for people who may unexpectedly and surprisingly find themselves homeless.
As we look back, we believe that god kept us in a needful situation for a period of time in order to see how the church would react or fail to react to our homelessness. In our case the church utterly failed to help. We are not doing this out of vindictiveness, but out of a desire to 
exhort others to reach out, supply assistance, and be quick to help when families are in need instead of being self-appointed judges.
Scriptures say, “Judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. What [does it] profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what [does it] profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”1
We all know these scriptures, but when we fail to put them into action we prove to others that ours is a superficial religion, not a true inward belief. Lives will depend on our ability to act and react properly during the serious times that are coming upon our land.