There are many roads that lead to homelessness, and a sudden, debilitating health issue is one of them.

Just ask Aaron, who in 2020 was running a successful pool construction and maintenance business when he noticed his vision deteriorating. He went to get a new eyeglass prescription but after some testing, doctors told him he had a baseball size tumor in his head.

Suddenly, Aaron was fighting for his life.  A craniotomy soon followed (a procedure where the skull is opened to surgically remove the tumor). The next months became a blur of hard, depressing days spent in rehab at the hospital.

For a while, it was uncertain whether Aaron would regain his full vision or be able to see in color ever again. The trauma also damaged his memory and hampered his thinking and mobility. After his long hospitalization, Aaron’s pool business was in tatters and his savings were gone. He had lost nearly everything. Worst of all, he had nowhere to go–except the streets.

“Everybody was like, ‘Where did this guy go?’” Aaron recalls. “Everything was gone.”

A providential encounter with a Mission staff member in a South Tulsa QuikTrip store led to Aaron joining the men’s New Creation recovery program. At the Mission, Aaron had the time to fully recover from his illness without having to be homeless.

During his time in the program, Aaron also renewed and deepened his walk with the Lord, something that was well overdue in his life. “To be honest, my faith had grown cool,” he said. “But spiritually, my growth (since coming to the Mission) has been huge.”

While at the Mission, Aaron’s color vision was restored and his mobility and balance were vastly improved, which he attributes to God’s power.
“God is the only legitimate miracle worker!” he said.

Aaron completed the New Creation program and today he is reviving his swimming pool construction and maintenance business and has several clients already lined up. He is also going back to school to this January to get a master’s degree in supply chain management.

Aaron is incredibly grateful to our donors for helping him through this difficult period. He knows he likely would have been homeless without the refuge you help provide at the Mission. “I don’t think I would be here without your help,” he said. “I’m so thankful!”