As Nashville Rescue Mission’s new Women & Children’s Campus opens, our most vulnerable neighbors can at long last find “a refuge and hiding place from the storm” (Isaiah 4:6).

“We were homeless. We fled domestic violence,” Faith explains, their escape still vivid. “It was a three-hour walk to the nearest place—we were in the middle of nowhere, [but] finally were able to get away. The power went out, and he had to go charge his phone, and we ran. Literally. We just went,” Faith shares.

“He had already hurt me a lot physically,” she says. “It was the scariest.”

But as they arrived in Nashville, Faith recalls, “we [went] to a couple different shelters, but ended up not feeling safe. So we were looking for just anywhere, really,” she explains, but, “we couldn’t find anywhere!”

How frightening for a mother who only wants to protect her child and herself, especially after dealing with a disability that only made them more defenseless on their own . . . or on the street.

It just was me and my daughter trying to think about what we were going to do.

Tragically, Faith had already been looking for safety and security for much of her life. “My mom abandoned me three times. For a while, as a teenager, I tried to live in abandoned apartments, trying to go to school . . .” she says.

“I didn’t know of shelter. I didn’t even know that there was shelter or anything when I was a kid.”

But just as we are for hundreds of women, children, and families at risk each year, Nashville Rescue Mission was here for Faith and her daughter . . . with arms and hearts wide open in welcome!

Faith and her little girl are so grateful for hearts like yours giving them shelter from the storm of their lives—and just as importantly, “hope and a future,” (Jer. 29:11 NIV) by God’s grace.

Faith says, “The underlying thing I’d say is, count your blessings and make your blessings count. Because it does make a difference!”