By Norman Jameson
With the promise of a job in hand and her 14-year-old son in tow, Shantell Cotton left California seeking a better life in North Carolina.
When the job evaporated, her money lasted less than a month and Shantell spent Christmas in 2004 in a Salvation Army funded hotel.
“I became homeless,” Shantell said, today from the comfort of an office with a national insurance company where she is training to handle commercial accounts.
Standing between that bitter and frightening holiday, and the bright future she now sees, were volunteers and counselors with the Christian Women’s Job Corps.
Counselors visited Shantell and other homeless women at the Helen Wright Center to bring materials, encouragement, Bible study and hope.
“The first time they came I thought it was going to be pointless,” Shantell said. “Then I learned these successful women had endured the same types of tragedy I was enduring. They were able to share that and relate it to scripture and everything was truly blessed.”
Counselors encouraged the shelter residents, established a high standard of hope and expectation and brought insights through scripture study.
“They developed characteristics of God on the inside so you could change your life on the outside,” Shantell said. “They brought no judgment. They were not harsh at all. They spoke fully from the word of God to allow it to transform us so we wouldn’t feel like we were horrid human beings for the mistakes we had made.
“They shared their own mistakes and sometimes there would be tears, sometimes there would be laughter. But just because we fall doesn’t mean we need to stay there. Every time they spoke the counselors said how they had fallen and were able to get back up through Christ. It was remarkable.”
NCMO Supports CWJC
The Christian Women’s Job Corps is a ministry of the Woman’s Missionary Union of North Carolina and is supported through gifts to the North Carolina Missions Offering, received by most churches in September.
As the women in the shelter struggled to remain positive, counselor Diane Wittman suggested they write scripture verses on thin strips and put them in a medicine bottle. She called them Prescriptures and a good dose was just right for those times when “you feel like you just want to throw up your hands and can’t go on.”
Soon Shantell could look beyond herself and she volunteered one day at the North Raleigh Mission. There she met Paula, who works at the insurance company, and who also was volunteering that day. Paula told Shantell her company was hiring for some training positions.
She has been working there since Feb. 27 and now plans to finish the college degree she started in California, and go on to earn a master’s degree in communications, “in hopes of building up our communities. As a nation, we need that.”
When Shantell feels the pressure of work, her counselors from CWJC are available. When she struggled to grasp the training early, she feared for her new job and called Pat Bryan.
“She referenced certain scriptures and asked that I carry them around and she suggested I talk to my trainer,” Shantell said. “Those steps made me more comfortable. Once I talked to him, the burden is gone. If I don’t get it, I ask tons of questions until I do.”
Shantell keeps a tight schedule, riding public transportation, with a car only a long term goal. Her son Stanley returned to California to live with his father, much to her disappointment. But Shantell stayed where she found hope, and help, through Christian Women’s Job Corps.
“I’m not sure if any other program benefits from the same opportunity we’ve had,” she said. “Our counselors were dedicated to our cause. It could not have been more perfect.”
For more information about the ministries of Woman’s Missionary Union, and other missions and ministries supported through the North Carolina Missions Offering continue to explore this site.