FINDING FAITH IN OURSELVES AND SOMETHING BIGGER

Tuesday, October 02, 2018

THE HUNDRED STORY HOME
A Memoir of finding faith in ourselves
and something bigger
By Kathy Izard

OVERVIEW: In The Hundred Story Home, Kathy Izard invites us to live out our own stories more fully. She wrote The Hundred Story Home not to convince you to solve homelessness in your community but to help you solve the homelessness in you. This beautiful memoir reminds us that not only can we help change the world, but in doing so we change ourselves. Following an insistent whisper, Kathy quit her job as a graphic designer and began to do what seemed unimaginable: build a home for Charlotte's homeless. Kathy was a mother of four, in the second half of her life, and the task didn't make any sense, yet it proved to be her first step in finding her way home.

AUTHOR: Kathy Izard was an award-winning graphic designer for twenty years in Charlotte before launching the pilot program Homeless to Home for the Urban Ministry Center in 2007. She successfully demonstrated this Housing First program could succeed and led the city-wide effort to build Moore Place, Charlotte's first permanent supportive housing for more than one hundred chronically homeless men and women. For more information, please visit KathyIzard.com.

MY REVIEW: If you have a heart for the plight of the chronically homeless, this is  a book you will want to read. If you know, are related to or feel deeply concerned about someone with bipolar disorder, you will be interested in this book. Most of all, this book will help you find faith, strengthen your faith, find faith in yourself or something bigger.

I was immediately interested and drawn into this book when I discovered what it was about. As a minister for over forty-seven years I knew that Jesus had a heart for the homeless and so did I. I just never knew what to do about it. I still don't know how to handle the homeless situation in my own city of Phoenix. But I now know more than I did before reading this book. I was also drawn in because like Kathy's mother, who was mentally ill, I have a niece who I love dearly that has a bipolar disorder.

I agree with author Courtney Westlake who said, "Compelling and convicting, The Hundred Story Home is a powerful testament to the way one person can affect transformation at the deepest levels. Kathy's beautiful storytelling propelled me outside of my comfort zones...It's impossible to read The Hundred Story Home and walk away unchanged."

(I received this book from BookLook Bloggers in exchange for a fair and honest review.)