My name is Michelle. I am 16 years of age and I live at Inner City Mission.

When I was little I used to live here, and I came here to visit a lot with my mom after we moved out. Me and my mom lived in a lot of homeless shelters throughout my life. We moved back and forth a lot. My mom died June 12th, 2006 of pancreatic cancer. I then went on to stay with an aunt for almost 3 years. But, I felt like I didn’t need to be there anymore because she wasn’t treating me right. So, then, I decided I wanted to stay with another aunt who was living at ICM at the time. She was treating her life right while living at ICM until drugs caught back up with her. Then, around Spring Break she took my money and left me while I was on a youth mission trip.

Now, I’m working on becoming emancipated. It’s taken several months to overcome issues so that I can be emancipated. The staff are very helping. They support me in my decisions. Since I’m still young, they help me by letting me know when I make a good decision or a bad decision. They are like my parents.

I’m thankful for this place being loving and kind to help me with my struggles. I’m thankful also for the mission teaching me values in life and why things are the way they are. And all at the same time, they put God first to make it more understandable.

A struggle that I have here is that I’m 16 and some people still treat me like a child while others treat me like an adult.

My goals while living at the mission are to learn about life and to do things right so that I don’t have to come back again as a resident.

For those that help me and other residents out, may God bless you abundantly and spread His mercy over you.