Sunshine Rescue Mission & Hope Cottage

SRM provides a path out of homelessness by addressing its root causes, such as trauma, addiction and extreme poverty in a gospel-powered life transforming environment. In this relational-community approach, people who were once hopeless and destitute find support, healing, dignity and restoration through the love of Jesus Christ.

Testimonials

Aime's Story at Sunshine Rescue Mission:

Aime Mukaza survived a war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa. In that war his parents and siblings were killed. He says, "I was only 2 years old and left to die but the United Nations Peacekeepers came to rescue me. They took me to a refugee camp in Uganda. In 2013, at the age of 16, I was brought to the United States by organizations working to rescue war-orphaned children experiencing life threatening critical conditions".

The story of homelessness is ALWAYS about deep trauma. When we met Aime he was homeless in Flagstaff, self-medicating unprocessed grief with pain too hard to face alone. He came in through The Rescue Mission, hungry like everyone else. Although he was selected from thousands of orphans to come to the US, he still carried a tremendous amount of hurt inside. Getting out of a war-tourn country, having a good foster family and enrolling in college at NAU was not enough.

He explains being homeless in Flagstaff and his personal journey out, like this:

At the age of 19 I enrolled at Northern Arizona University, (NAU) in Flagstaff wanting to major in Political Science and International Affairs. In my freshman year I was overwhelmed by loneliness without any parental guidance and support. I was also aging out of the Foster Care Program. I had 3 suicide attempts, within 3 years of college. I was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety disorder and a panic disorder and prescribed medication that I was to take indefinitely. When suicide didn't work I started self-medicating, drinking too much and using drugs. I eventually lost all my scholarships and financial aid.

When I came to the Sunshine Rescue Mission I was only hoping for shelter and food. It ended up being so much more than that. The staff there is devoted to helping people through the trauma that crashed their lives in the first place. It is a faith based shelter with an emphasis on healing. They surrounded me in a community of love and support and walked with me through the messiness of my past. Eventually my PTSD stopped, my anxiety and panic disorders disappeared and I fell asleep without taking any of my medication. I started finding peace. I started recognizing the patterns that led me to being homeless. The SRM bed upstairs that I was sleeping in (a safe place to live), was just the beginning. The staff kept supporting me and their process shifted to recovering and regaining what I had lost, including being reinstated back into college at NAU, getting my important documents replaced and eventually getting college scholarship funding reinstated. Eventually I was moved to SRM's Sanctuary House, a residential healing-home for other guys like me. Now I had a place to live and study like a normal student. I'm now going to school full time with one semester remaining to graduate from NAU! I am also working full time in a professional job! This job is funding the remainder of my schooling and meeting other expenses, including setting aside the savings I will need to get my own apartment.

It's incredible all that God has done in my life. None of it started happening until I had lost everything and landed at The Sunshine Rescue Mission.

My life has changed forever!

Aime Mukiza