Policy Book

This past fall we had a semester student, Margie Ewald, work with us at the Social Work site. She had several responsibilities including leading Bible studies and activities with several of the groups at the site. But her biggest contribution was a site policy book that she completed almost entirely by herself. We came up with a list of 79 issues that we are confronted with in the community (such as adultry, parenting, financial issues, etc) and looked up Bible verses that relate to each of the issues. Then Margie wrote 1-2 paragraphs summarizing where the Bible stands on each of the issues. The idea is that the book will be kept at the site as a reference when these issues come up. Many times Daisy and I are confronted with issues and though we can often share our own opinions and paraphrase what the Bible says, with this book at our fingertips, we can now share with the person exactly what the Bible says and share specific verses with them. We also hope that this book will continue to be a resource for new site leaders that come in this future, so they can know what types of issues they will be dealing with and how the Bible says to confront them. I have been using some of my time at home (between cleaning/cooking/caring for James) to translate it into Spanish (which has been quite the task...79 pages!)

I really like what Margie wrote as the purpose statement of the book:

The purpose and the heart behind this book is that it would be used as a resource to minister to and build relationships with the women, teenagers, and girls of El Callejon. This book was not created to be a policy book on life, a piece of literature to give to someone who is struggling, or a rigid rulebook on how to deal with problems. On the contrary, it was created to be a foundation for heartfelt and personal conversations where Christ can work through us, with words and loving embraces to walk alongside women who are struggling. Because there is no reasonable way to write comprehensive summaries of each of the topics within, this book promotes conversation, thought, and further study. This is simply a resource to do God’s work of building relationships and coming alongside other people who are in need of a friend or someone to talk to. Other uses for this book might include ideas for the formation of Bible studies or personal study.

Margie with Rosa- a girl that comes the activities at the site