MCH Family Outreach case manager shares message to hope

Case manager Brett Greenfield found a generous company
to donate seven mattresses for a Waco family in need.

From Brett Greenfield, case manager for MCH Family Outreach in Waco:

“Offering hope to children, youth and families.” Here at Methodist Children’s Home it’s who we are and what we do.

The challenging part of working in an MCH Family Outreach office is that we never really know what the families we serve will need or when they will need it. This can make offering hope a little difficult sometimes.

Just when we think we have heard it all, we meet a new family that surprises us. This was certainly the case here in Waco when two families I had been working with suddenly found themselves in need of mattresses. Seven mattresses to be exact. Knowing that kids are sleeping on the floor is heartbreaking, and at the same time is not the easiest problem to solve.

After calling every contact and donation center I could think of and receiving the same disheartened response, hope seemed pretty thin. Every time I saw that familiar mission statement, offering hope, I felt the stinging conviction to keep trying. I eventually made a half-hearted request to a large corporate mattress manufacturer without really thinking it would do any good. Much to my surprise, after a few weeks of growing pessimism, I received an email stating they would be happy to donate not one, not two, but all SEVEN mattresses! I excitedly responded with the utmost gratitude and appreciation and coordinated the delivery of these brand new mattresses.

On delivery day I borrowed a truck, loaded up the mattresses and personally delivered them to these two families in need. The smiles on the faces of parents and children with clean, soft, and safe places to sleep is something I will never take for granted.

Too often we think the problems in front of us are too big, the requests we have too grand, and the resources available too small. Somehow in the midst of trying to hold on to hope, I forgot another command entirely, choose joy. It is abundantly clear that hope and joy are intimately linked. It is easy to lose sight of hope, and can be even easier to miss out on joy. Fortunately, the task of offering hope and choosing joy does not have to fall completely on us. Hope has a way of making itself known, this time in the form of mattresses. And in moments like these, joy chooses us.