During difficult and lonely times, a trustworthy companion can make all the difference. Through Mayor Hickenlooper’s Family and Senior Homeless Initiative, Cheryl Nesbitt, Doris Hicks and Barbara Smith have provided companionship and guidance to Denver-area families. For over four years, this team of women from True Light Baptist Church has come alongside families in need. These remarkable women have worked with a variety of personalities and situations. Through it all, they’ve repeatedly witnessed and experienced the transformative power of trust.
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Pictured From left to right: Barbara Smith, Doris Hicks, and Cheryl Nesbitt |
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Cheryl Nesbitt uses her team’s experience with the Wimbush family as an example. Last year, the True Light team mentored three generations of Wimbush women: a grandmother, mother, and daughter in second grade. Before the True Light team delved into the family’s finances or personal issues, they sought to win the Wimbushes’ trust. “It’s hard to talk about your personal life,” Cheryl acknowledges. “A relationship has to come first. Before you do anything, you have to get to know them.” With that in mind, the team organized social events together, just so everybody could get to know one another and feel comfortable.
Slowly but surely, as the True Light women showed genuine interest, the Wimbushes’ willingness to trust gradually increased. “After a couple of meetings,” Cheryl says, “the family began to realize that this group, this team, these people, were really trying to reach out and help them. That’s when they shared their dreams. That’s when they shared their needs. And that’s when we could begin to offer any resources or contacts that we had … At the end of the process, there is a renewed hope.”
Cheryl loved the Wimbushes’ energy and enthusiasm: “They were interested and willing to work,” she says. The True Light team saw the opportunity for Angel Wimbush, the mother of the second-grader, to increase her earnings. Angel worked in customer service at a local retail store, but she had once served as a supervisor. When the True Light women discovered this, they encouraged her to seek a promotion. With her new friends’ support, Angel diligently tackled the task of increasing her livelihood, filling out many applications. Moreover, Angel has taken it upon herself to apply for car assistance, something she wouldn’t have done before. Additionally, her mother, Christine, is in process of attaining more medical help for her disability. “They never would have taken the initiative before,” Cheryl says. “They have come a ways. They have really come a ways.”
Why this change in the Wimbush women? Cheryl believes that Angel has become more proactive because she trusted the True Light mentor team. She was willing to consider their suggestions, which in turn, have lasting influence. “Trust earned me a second chance to influence for good,” Cheryl said. “If someone is embarrassed to tell you that she has applied to work at Taco Bell, then you’ll never know what is really going on in her life. But if she trusts you enough to tell you about it, then you can make suggestions. You can advise her to get on the management track. And because she trusts you, you get a second chance at offering advice. The other women of True Light and I would say that building a relationship with the family is where you’ll see your work manifest itself.”
In her years as a mentor, Cheryl has found it effective to concentrate on common human experience: “Any of us could be where they are at any day. If I did not have resources or extended family, I would be in the same situation. We’re connected,” she says.
To celebrate the end of their official mentorship period, Cheryl, Doris and Barbara took the Wimbushes out to dinner. At the restaurant, they were able to give Christine some household items she needed. The next week, they received a letter in the mail from the family, thanking the True Light team for their financial assistance, advice, and most especially, for taking the time to get to know them. “Thank you for spending time with us. That felt really good,” they wrote. “We felt like we could be open with you.”
What is next for the women of True Light? They’ve recently begun mentoring a mother and her five children!
Thank you, women of True Light Baptist, for your willingness to provide material assistance and friendship, to those in need. Thank you for deliberately, specifically entering into their lives. Thank you for walking with them, companions on the journey, through the Mayor’s call to the faith community! |
