Thankful for More Than Provision—For a Future and so much Hope

Riverview, FL

Joelle Allen has a job she loves with Lighthouse Gospel Mission, a ministry that partners with Operation Blessing.

“Being able to work at a ministry like this where lives are being changed every day, I cannot tell you what a gift it is.”

But things haven't always been easy. When Joelle first came to the ministry, she was a single mom seeking healing from a life of drug addiction and abuse.

“Everything that I was trying to do fell apart.”

As she turned her life around, she met her future husband, Keith, who was also a single parent.  While they dated, he faced his own challenges.

“One week after we started dating, he got let go of his job.”

“I didn’t have income coming in. Things were getting tight.”

They both relied on food from Operation Blessing to feed their families.

“And all of my food and hygiene items were provided by Operation Blessing.”

With that hand up from the mission’s women’s ministry and Operation Blessing, a year later, she found healing and a job.

“I stayed and supervised the Women's Faith Home for four-and-a-half years." 

Joelle and Keith persevered through the job losses and got married. Keith landed a great job in sales, but when he looks back, he’s still thankful for the help he received.  

“During that whole time when I had no job, Operation Blessing blessed my family. We had food. I got it all through the Lighthouse and Operation Blessing.”

“We got the help we need to survive and now we're moving forward. We have some money in savings, we have credit building. If we didn't have the assistance, we would have put all our money into that and we couldn't have gotten ahead, we would've stayed stuck. We're planning on buying a home next year. If I could say anything to Lighthouse Gospel Mission and Operation Blessing, I would just say, ‘Thank you.’”