Summer Speedos | Lifting Up a Grieving Mother

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This is Journey with Care. Hey. We're taking 4 weeks of the summer

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to keep it short or speedy. Let's just call these

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summer speedos. Short action packed dives into the

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incredible stories of everyday people using Care Portal to

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build connection and change lives. Care Portal, for those

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that haven't heard, is an amazing platform connecting churches,

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families, and businesses with specific needs with some of the most

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vulnerable in our communities. So as you soak up the sun this

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summer and enjoy these summer Speedos, remember, Journey with

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Care is powered by Care Impact, a Canadian charity helping

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strangers become good neighbours. To keep bringing you our podcast and these

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stories, we rely on supporters like you. So for

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the summer Speedo series, join our summer of 30.

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We're looking for 30 amazing listeners to donate $30 in

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the next 30 days. Every dollar helps us maintain our

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equipment, update our software, and help us cover all the

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expenses associated with bringing you these important stories.

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So to join the summer 30, check the show notes for the link or visit

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journey with care dot ca slash 30. That's journey with care

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dot ca slash 30. So go ahead,

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pause it, and become 1 of the 30 right now. Alright.

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Enough chit chat. Let's get on with the summer Speedos.

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I think keeping in the forefront of our mind, we're sending the churches on

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mission over and over again, right into, into hard places.

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A need came in and the need says, this mom

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lost her 7 year old child last week to drowning.

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She wants to get connected to a local grief counseling program, but she

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doesn't drive. And so an Uber gift card will ease this

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financial burden of transportation and allow her to get the services that she

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needs as she greets her child.

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And so a local church picked this up, and

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they acknowledged we could send her a gift card through

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email. We could send that gift card through the case

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worker, but we would really, really love

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And so, they showed up to her home. They really expected

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to give this to her and go. But when

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they came to the front door, she kind of launched

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herself into their arms and wouldn't really let go.

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It had been 6 days since she lost her 6 year

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old son. They lived in an apartment complex. He had,

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pretty severe autism, and they had walks

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in place and all of these extra measures,

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in place to keep him safe. And he still got

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out, and he still drowned.

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She hadn't had the ability to process that really with anyone.

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She ended up in child welfare and in prevention due to the

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investigation of all of that. She and her

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family are from Ghana, and so they recently relocated

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here, and so she doesn't drive. Her

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husband left almost as soon as they got here, and so she's pretty

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isolated.

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She has no real way of supporting her family. She has a 15

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and a 7 year old still at home, and they're struggling

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to then grieve this loss that happened as soon as they got here.

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And so, for the church to go in

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and offer her not only this gift card, but this

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place to to process. They stayed there for hours.

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She showed them pictures of her baby. She was able

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to talk with them, and then they they told her,

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we'll be back. Like, how how soon can we be back?

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And they were able to tell her, this is not punishment

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here with you, and we'll be back. And so, how are you gonna feed your

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kids this week? We'll be back with food. Do you need groceries? We'll be back

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with groceries. How do you who is your support? We're your support because

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you are so marginalized here and you are so

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isolated here, and we're your people now.

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And so, you know, a a few actually reached out to me because

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here's I wanna quickly read what the church responder left

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as the the feedback. He says, this child

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drowned on Wednesday. This was the saddest and heaviest

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care portal need I've ever been involved with. When we entered the apartment,

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we introduced ourselves and mom immediately embraced the lady who came with me

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and began to cry. They had never met and yet 1 mother was comforting another

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mother and sympathizing with the indescribable pain that goes with the

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She took She took out her phone and showed us pictures of her

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beautiful 7 year old boy. It's heartbreaking, really. We

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talked a while and told her God sees her and has not forgotten

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her. We told her about our church and that she was

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not alone. We asked to pray for her and she called her other boys out

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and the 5 of us stood, held hands, and prayed together.

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This family is from Africa and she seems so alone and isolated. I

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hope and pray she knows she's not alone. I hope and pray we can be

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there for them moving forward.

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So the the follow-up here is that this past

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Sunday, these

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blessed to go. They had strategically placed people to greet

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them as they went in the door and the responder kinda said the church

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doesn't always get it right, but on Sunday, they nailed it. They felt

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welcomed and embraced. They went out to lunch afterwards.

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They have plans moving forward, like the 15 15 year old needs to learn how

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to drive. He just got his permit, so they have people in place to teach

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him how to drive. They have people in place to get groceries moving forward. They

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have people in place to walk through counseling, and they have her counseling

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covered. And so the idea of everyone

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just just getting it right on such a heavy 1,

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Right? That this family went from isolation

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to support through a church saying yes and connected

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by Care Portal. And her

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investigation is closed out, her prevention case is

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closed out, and the church really has got it from

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here.

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Thanks for listening to this summer Speedo on the Journey with Care podcast.

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To keep the stories and conversations flowing,

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visit journeywithcare. Ca/30. That's journeywithcare/30.

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Thanks for being part of the journey.