My Friend, Mona (Part 4)

For well over sixty years I have had privilege and the joy of sharing the Good News of Jesus, and meeting the urgent physical needs of some of the world’s neediest families and children.

Recently, I have been sharing with you the story of Mona, one of my “children from the streets” here in Los Angeles. Mona’s life was a total disaster. Divorced and abandoned by the man who promised to always love her, protect her and provide for her and their young children, Mona became homeless and lived on the streets, before being forced by the City of Los Angeles to live in Tent City with her young children. And if you can believe it, the story of her life goes straight downhill from there.

Every time Mona had another major crisis in her life, she would come to the Mission for prayer, so she came to Fred Jordan Mission again to tell me that since we last met, she had given birth to another baby boy, following a casual encounter with some guy on the streets. That little boy was now two years old, but since she was still living on the streets, she had given him to her ex-husband who lived in a filthy flophouse hotel. “At least he has a roof over his head,” she said.

She was now living on the street with her 13-year-old daughter, and they were sleeping on a wooden shipping pallet. Then she said, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I was so desperate for food that I slept with this man while living on the street in a cardboard box, and now I’m expecting another baby.”

Her eyes watered and her head dropped as she spoke—embarrassed, sad and angry all at the same time. I hugged her and prayed with her again. Then she told me her thirteen-year-old daughter, who is developmentally disabled, was also pregnant.

Mona’s young son, Chris, spent two years in jail for shooting and wounding an 8-year-old girl in a gang related fight. She gave her two-year-old son to her ex-husband, who lived in a flophouse hotel. She was again living on the streets with her thirteen-year-old pregnant daughter, and now Mona herself was expecting another baby. What next, I wondered!

I wish I could tell you that everyone who comes to the Mission also comes to faith in Jesus Christ, but sadly, that is not the case. However, we are here because God has called us here. And we’re going to stay here, so that all the hurting, broken people here on the streets of Los Angeles will know where to come when they need love, and care, and someone to pray with them.

1-844-FJM-FOOD is our toll-free number. Please help us share God’s love here on Skid Row. Or you may donate on Fred Jordan Mission’s secure website, fjm.org.

Blessings,

Willie Jordan (Mrs. Fred Jordan)