Our Hearts Are with the Homeless

As a child, Amy came with her mother to City Rescue Mission for help when they moved to Oklahoma City. “We’d come down from New York where we’d stayed at a battered women’s shelter,” she recalls. “When I began volunteering at City Rescue Mission, I felt God brought my life full circle. I can let people here know you don’t have to live a defeated life. I came from the streets. I know the heartache. And, I know God redeems.”

Amy and Cissa Newberry get up at the crack of dawn each Tuesday and Friday and drive to City Rescue Mission where they help serve breakfast from 6 to 8 o’clock. The two are married to brothers and live in separate households, but in many ways, both families mirror each other in lifestyle, business, parenting and their walks with the Lord.

While the two women dish up eggs and chat with the Mission’s clients, their husbands prepare for work (they co-own a business) and get the children ready for a day of home schooling. Amy and Cissa return home by 9 a.m., but leave part of their hearts behind with the homeless they’ve come to love.

Cissa learned to love the homeless while on mission trips to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. “I found my heart was with them,” she says simply. “I used to be scared of anyone who looked different, but God showed me the homeless simply needed love.”

It didn’t take long for Amy and Cissa to realize they had a lot in common with the homeless men and women at City Rescue Mission. Within weeks, they’d befriended several people in the Bridge to Life recovery program.

“One of my favorite memories is of Christmas dinner,” Amy smiles. “In between serving trays of food, we sat around snapping beans. Gail, Shana and Iesha, all members of Bridge to Life at the time, joined us and we started reminiscing. Just five women snapping beans—it connected us all during a lonely time of year.”

Stu, a fourth-level Bridge to Life member, asked Amy and Cissa to attend a special service, during which he joined his church. Kelle, a female member in the program, opened her heart to Amy and Cissa during a recent personal struggle.

Several Bridge to Life members have found true friends in Amy and Cissa, and it goes both ways! Recently, when Amy was suddenly hospitalized, Kelle and Stu wanted to visit her and were even willing to use their hard-earned bus passes to make the trip. Cissa picked them up on her way to the hospital as a special surprise for Amy.

“People at the Mission know we’re committed,” Amy says. “We don’t always talk. We listen. They feel they can trust us, and we don’t take that lightly.”

“When we love them and care for them and call them by name, it makes their day better,” says Cissa. “If you want to stretch yourself beyond what you think you can do … if you love people … this is the perfect place to be.”