May Helen pictured here during our 2010 Christmas Eve Festival.

Since November the 15^th, our beloved Board Member, Vestry Member, Acolyte Warden, Mrs. Claus and chef for our Community Suppers, Parenting Classes, 7^th Heaven Camp and Sunday Breakfasts, Mrs. May Helen Johnson, has be sleeping with her grown daughter Alison and 7 grandchildren in a conference room at Emmaus House.

One of the most open hearted and long-time members of the Emmaus House and diocesan family, May Helen’s home (where all 9 lived) and all its contents were destroyed by an electrical fire.

We have at long last found a reasonably priced and reasonably large rental home about 3 miles from Peoplestown.  The lease is signed and the 9 mattresses and 1 folding table were moved in today, December 19^th.

Can you help make this house a home in time for Christmas?  Can you help the adults and school children get back and forth to work and school?  Here’s what we need.

If you know someone who could donate or sell (at a very low cost) a minivan, please telephone The Rev. Claiborne Jones at 404.525.5948. This is an urgent need.  If you have household items you could donate, please email Claiborne at claibornejones@emmaushouse.org.  She will send you a list of needed items as of this date and help you connect with Mrs. Johnson for deliveries.  

We are sorry for the delay in getting this notice out, but it seemed important to have a house to take things to, and to know far it would be from schools and jobs,  before asking you to do whatever you can.  Monetary contributions are always welcomed and can be made online by clicking on the donate button to the right or mailed to 1017 Hank Aaron Drive SW, Atlanta,GA 30315 and marked   “For Johnson Fund.”

Merry Christmas and many thanks.

The Rev. E. Claiborne Jones

Director and Vicar

Dear Friends, 

Since kicking off our year end campaign in November, I have been trying to find assistance for one of our most dedicated and beloved neighbors, the May Helen Johnson family, who were burned out of their home on November 15^th.  In the busy work (which continues) of looking for short and long-term solutions for 9 people who had no home insurance, I have become ever more mindful of how suddenly a position of relative stability and frugality can turn into a major, life-altering disaster.

I’m sending this little note to our faithful donors because Emmaus House is also in difficult situation. The demands on our services this year have been overwhelming and the donations which support our work have decreased. As of the end of November, our expenses are under budget but we are now $175,000 below our target income if we are to end the year in the black.

For those of you who have given so generously, even sacrificially to Emmaus House this year, we are deeply grateful.  For those who have not yet given an end of year gift, or who might be able to contribute an additional amount, we would be deeply grateful for your help.

One of my favorite prayers asks of God, “amidst the changes and chances of this life, may we rest in your eternal changelessness.”   Thank you for helping putting anxious hearts to rest.

Yours faithfully,

The Rev. E. Claiborne Jones

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A special thank you to Brittany Grace and the members of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Marietta, GA for organizing the Senior Strollers annual holiday luncheon.

By Emmaus House Chapel member, Anne Rein

Waiting is the great vocation of the dispossessed. – Mary Gordon

Christ the King was not a typical Sunday at Emmaus House. During the prayers of the people Vicar Claiborne Jones gathered us in a circle around the family of May Helen Johnson whose home had burned five days earlier, displacing her and eight other members of her family. We placed our hands on her and her family members as we prayed a psalm, asking for spiritual refuge for them in the absence of a place to live. During communion, we heard another member of the congregation who recognized that his father had become disoriented and needed urgent medical care giving directions on the telephone to the 911 dispatcher. The elderly man received communion in the pew just before the ambulance arrived. Elizabeth Roles, our Co-vicar, removed her vestments and accompanied the family to the hospital. It was not a typical Sunday, but the congregation—accustomed to living with the exigencies of life every day—witnessed this emergency in prayerful silence.  After church, Dee Weems chatted with old friends while directing the volunteers from St. Bede’s who unloaded carload after carload of the Thanksgiving goodies which their congregation and others collect for us so that 400 households could have Thanksgiving at Home. A little later David Shew arrived with a huge bucket of Church’s fried chicken, which cures all but the most extreme emotional anguish. I worship at Emmaus House (driving past two of the four Episcopal churches which are geographically closer to me) because the love of the congregation for each other and all our sisters and brothers in Christ is so palpable that I cannot walk in the door without feeling immediately uplifted.

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