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Haven, Jesus provided for troubled women
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer ST. PETERSBURG -- Donna Bargar was appalled when she first entered the three-story building at Fifth Avenue and Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) Street S. "It was a total disaster. It was smelly and horrible," she recalled Friday. Two months later, the ground floor still smells, but fresh paint coats the walls and those who live here hope the rehabilitated building will give them new life as well. Now named the House of Mary Magdalene, it is a temporary home for former female inmates and other women in trouble. Saturday the house, painted gray and trimmed in an optimistic pink, will be dedicated. Late last week, Cynthia Bell, 37, who runs the home with volunteers, was putting things in order, fielding questions, dispensing hugs and postponing phone calls. She and her husband, the Rev. Lester Bell, 57, are part of the Good News Jail and Prison Ministry, a national nonprofit organization that evangelizes inmates and their families. But telling troubled families about God was not enough, Mrs. Bell decided. She and a few other women felt that they needed to do more than offer "Jesus on the inside but no help on the outside," Mrs. Bell said. Places like the House of Mary Magdalene, at 524 Dr. M.L. King (Ninth) St. S, are important, said Ms. Bargar, who is employed by Phoenix House and is the discharge planning coordinator of Project Success, an in-house drug treatment program at the Pinellas County Jail. "Trying to find a place that is safe and drug-free, especially for women, is very, very difficult," said Ms. Bargar, who recently placed four women in the home. "Without a safe place to live, their recovery would be in jeopardy," she said. Residents are required to get a job within 30 to 45 days and to pay rent, Mrs. Bell said. "We want these women to jump right back into society," she said. They can remain up to a year at the nonprofit shelter, which can house 34 residents in its 17 efficiency and three two-bedroom apartments. The house, which opened in early November, currently has nine women. Exceptions are made. One woman, her three young children and husband, who had lost his job, have been given a temporary home. They will move to a new apartment this week, Mrs. Bell said. Friday mid morning, in a room off one of the narrow corridors with their old, paint-spattered carpets, a young woman, who was ill, was lying in bed. Another woman smiled at the door of her apartment, where inside, an air of normalcy prevailed as her 3-year-old splashed in the bathtub. Toys were scattered everywhere. The oldest resident, a 61-year-old, who had been in jail for stealing, was attending to business outside the home. Helping out around the shelter was Jodi Al Hadidi, 31, who has been out of jail for a year. "I truly feel that this house is filled with the Holy Spirit," she said, taking a break and sitting on her bed next to a Bible and an Our Daily Bread devotional booklet. From Clinton, Iowa, Ms. Al Hadidi blamed cocaine and alcohol for getting her into "criminal activity of all sorts." The mother of three, one of whom has been adopted and two of whom live with their father in Iowa, said she yearns to turn her life around. "I want a better life," said Ms. Al Hadidi, who is HIV positive. "I made some wrong choices and I'm seeking God's will to make some right choices." That's the mission of the House of Mary Magdalene, said Mrs. Bell of the residence, which has built regular Bible study and prayer into its schedule. "Mary Magdalene was a woman forgiven. That's a representation of how we can be delivered, set free," she said. But the house that seeks to help may cause some anguish for some. In its last incarnation, Mrs. Bell said, it served as a men's shelter. And it was a drug house, she said. "We got girls here that were afraid to come over the threshold because of what was here. Because they were here doing drugs. Some were even molested," she said. But Ms. Al Hadidi is willing to let the gray and pink house that locks its residents in at night give her another chance. "This is it," she said Friday. "I don't wish to change the past, but I definitely want to close the door on it."
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
