b'Burt is CEO Emeritus at Knox Area Rescue Ministries (Knoxville, Tennessee) where he served for 19 years before retiring in 2022, and he has served on Citygate Networks board. He and his wife Carolyn have four children and launched the Hold On To Hope ministry in May 2022. You may reach them at burt@hopeholdson.org and carolyn@hopeholdson.org.A taste of home for the holidaysof the hundreds we serve that day, a seat at the F or those of us in mission work, we makeKARM table likely means an empty seat at the the holidays special for those we serve family table at home. And there is always a reason and rightly so. It is and should be part offor the estrangement, albeit many different ones. what we do for our homeless neighbors. SpecialIt is painful for everyone. meals. Gifts. As Carolyn and I and our other kidsJoshua Coleman, in his July 28, 2022 article in serve Thanksgiving here at KARM, we delight inThe Atlantic, writes that as a psychologist special-the joy it brings to our guests, a taste of home ifizing in family estrangement, his days are spent you will. Yet we are always mindful that for mostsitting with parents who are struggling with pro-found feelings of grief and uncertainty. If I get sick . will my son break his four years of silence So What Do We Do? and contact me? Or will I just die alone? How am I supposed to live with this kind of pain if I never see my daughter again? A large number of these estranged children 1 Continue doing what missions do best: meeting essentialand adults are living in our shelters. Some want needs and beyond with a wide array of recovery servicesdesperately to be reconnected to their familiesand ushering people into the presence of Jesus. others do not. Regardless, there are likely families 2 Provide a path for a person to become at peace with theworried about them, even if living back at homeCreator, community, and their family if possible. Theis not an option. Families just want, and arguably latter is so delicate. But a person can get to that spot even ifneed. to know if their child is alive.reconciliation is not advisable or helpful. Forgiveness may beBroken relationships are often a major contrib-the only option. Not seeing that can seriously hamperutor to other life challenges that can lead to recovery efforts.homelessness. I suspect such breaks can be found 3 Say something about this when you speak at churches.in most of the nearly 600,000 people who are Remember there is usually a worried family out there living in shelters. One report indicates that 70 husbands, wives, dads, moms, siblingswho may needpercent of that number are individuals, and the nothing more than to know their loved ones are alive. Yourest are people in families with children. may be that link. Networking to help B orn from our experience, Carolyn andI recently launched Hold On To Hope, a ministry to the family members often forgotten when we think about family ministry for the homeless. We are working with Citygate Network and others to establish a nationwide network of people who understand and are will-ing to help other parents hold on by providing prayer, support, and encouragement for as long as necessary. \x0312 WWW.CITYGATENETWORK.ORG NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022'