I suppose it's been a while since I've had much to say, or maybe perhaps it's that I've had a lot to say but little time in which to say it.
The reason my time has been so limited, besides homeschooling 3 children, is that God called me into full time, and then some, ministry.
Agape Thrift Store and Community Outreach was born in October 2015 and had originally had a team of two. Myself and another woman from my church. Things all fell into place nicely and off we were to the races. December 1 being our first official day open to the public.
Unfortunately at the same time that renovations on our new space were happening, doing some medical tests to look at something else ended up finding something we weren't looking for.
I got called into walk in clinic by the ER's on call doctor who had run the tests on me and he looked at me straight faced "so, it looks like you have whats called Sarcoidosis or Lymphoma..." he quickly followed up with it is likely the first one I mentioned and you can follow up with your family doctor once you get these tests done to determine which you have. No, I'm sorry, no have a nice day not even a don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out.
What could I do? I left and went home thinking okay, now what? Google of course! so I'm reading about the one I likely have, reading and reading and I'm thinking holy crap this sounds pretty rough, like people die from this.... Bernie Mac the comedian died from this!
In that moment I shut down. My family could not understand the magnitude of what we were facing, so I played it off as no big deal and said let's not worry until we get tests done. Pat and I chuckled having heard sarcoidosis as a possible diagnosis so many of times on House, but it was never actually that. So thanks Dr. House you didn't help this time.
Have no fear though turned out that as soon as my Dr got the xrays and test results he was suddenly calling every phone number he could find for me to get me into that clinic ASAP, I knew it wasn't good news, he wasn't usually so urgent. I agreed to come in right away but stopped to get him a cupcake because I knew this was going to be hard for him and cupcakes just make things better.
Having watched too many Grey's anatomy episodes lymphoma had ceased to be as serious a word as it should be in a real life circumstance and so he said your blood work has ruled out everything but Lymphoma.....looking at me.... and I'm like okay and that is....like CANCER LYMPHOMA?? light bulb turned on and I then swore at him and started to cry (I apologized for swearing). Looking into his eyes I knew that it was hard for him and he said but Kate your blood work looks good, I'm confident it is not that, but we'll have to do a lung biopsy to be sure that it's Sarc vs Lymphoma.
Long story short all they were able to do was rule out cancer, but not confirm Sarc except by all the clinical symptoms.
So here I was called to ministry, but all the doctors wanted me to lay down and be sick. I prayed, I bargained, I cried, I was frustrated. I truly didn't understand why things were happening the way they were. In the end, like any other time in my life when it would have been easier, smarter, logical to just lay down, I didn't. I went to work, I dragged myself. People coming in asking me if I was ok and me smiling and saying I'm just tired.
So the doors opened in December and my "partner" was gone by April, leaving me less than $500 in the bank account, and a big ol' F You. To this day I still have no idea what the heck happened, I've heard stories though, from Customers. How embarrassing really. Such a lovely way to portray Christianity to people who already think we're all a bunch of hypocrites anyway.
As hurt as I was, the show MUST go on, and on it went. I hired someone, then fired them, then hired someone else, to fire them too. I then hired another lady who was good at her job, the store was always clean, organized but things had slowed down. I couldn't afford to continue to pay her her full time wage, so at first I cut her hours and unfortunately I eventually had to lay her off as I couldn't afford to pay her and help people which was always the real point.
That left me, and in turn my oldest kid as the only ones that would work and that we did. It was a tough go, her in school me struggling with my health. In the end we made it work and here we are, now there are 3 of us that work the 6 day weeks in a new location that had allowed us to expand substantially store front wise, while also allowing for us to expand our programming to further serve the community.
Agape means Perfect Love in greek, the only perfect love is God's love and so in doing what we do for the community, we hope that we offer even a sliver of his love to those who we come into contact with everyday. Whether it be customers, clients or donators, we hope they leave feeling cared for and appreciated.
I have more to say, but there needed to be some updating and ground work laid for the next post, or anyone who isn't a part of my life or my facebook friend would be lost in much of what was to come next. Please feel free to stay tuned.
