CT -Grace Place: Hope and new beginnings

ST. MARGARET MARY DEANERY — On a quiet, tree-lined street in a Cincinnati neighborhood there is a large frame house where an atmosphere faith and support leads to a sense of hope and new beginnings.

It’s called Grace Place, a home rooted in the Catholic Worker tradition, which focuses its work on hospitality, justice, community living and spirituality. Under the direction of Joyce Asfour, Grace Place offers temporary residence up to one year at no cost for women, with or without children, who are in transition from homelessness. Grace Place also works with Catholic Social Services to house refugee families.

Since then, they have been slowly adjusting to life in the United States and learning about American customs, from riding bikes to shopping at the grocery store. The parents are enrolled in English classes, while the oldest children attend school at Woodward International and the Academy of World Languages. CSS is working to find the family permanent housing. Meanwhile, said Ndagijimana, "We are happy to be here in a culture with peace and no war."

Among the other recent guests at Grace Place were Uzoma and Victor Onyegbulam. The determined mother brought her 14-year-old son to the United States to seek additional medical care for the severe burns Victor suffered as a child. He has had five surgeries in the past year and more are planned. During their time at Grace Place, Uzoma gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, named Elfreda, whom guests, workers and visitors loved to hold and fuss over.

The family is now living in a home donated by College Hill Presbyterian Church, and Victor Onyegbulam is attending the Cincinnati Center for Performing Arts. Of Grace Place, the young man said, "It’s a good place, like being in a family. I want to say thank you to the people there for doing this kind of work."

Volunteer opportunities available at Grace Place include answering the phone, helping with meals, providing homework assistance for the children, mowing and gardening, fix-up projects around the house and taking the families on fun excursions. There is currently a special need for a volunteer with electrical skills to fix a ceiling fan and light in the "media room," which houses the residence’s television and computer, said Asfour.

Those who become involved in the ministry of Grace Place find it to be an extremely meaningful experience. Hannah Miller, a student at Dennison University who spent the summer as a live-in volunteer said, "Living at Grace Place gave me a broader perspective and a great deal of hope. I feel blessed to have spent the summer with such wonderful people. Many of them have encountered tremendous, perhaps unimaginable, hardships in their lives, yet they are so optimistic about the future and so caring toward each other and the people they encounter. The experience has helped me appreciate my own family and those "families" that we create through community wherever we go."

For more information about Grace Place, call 513-681-2365 or visit http://home.fuse.net/graceplacecw/welcome.htm.

"A century ago, the church responded generously to the needs of immigrants: building parishes and schools, establishing a vast array of charitable institutions, evangelizing newcomers, and being evangelized in turn by immigrant Catholics with distinctive traditions of worship and often a deep spirituality of their own. Members of the Eastern Catholic Churches arrived during the same period. They were not always understood by their fellow Catholics, although they were received and did develop as members of the Church in America. Despite the attacks of "nativists" and the criticisms made by English-speaking Catholics, national parishes were established that provided a safe haven where newcomers were able to pray and hear the word of God in their own languages, begin the education of their children in the language of the home, and so adapt to their new society with the security of community and faith. The church embraced these immigrants, supporting them in their striving to build a better life and encouraging the efforts of many of them to help build a labor movement that could represent them in that struggle. And then, as now — despite the predictions of critics — immigrants and their children quickly became vital participants in American society, acquiring proficiency in English by the second and third generations, rising in the educational system, and contributing in thousands of ways to the economic growth and social, political, and spiritual life of the country."

— From "Welcoming the Stranger Among Us: Unity in Diversity,"
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.