Connie Lee and Lynn Thompson

00:00 We have they won't know who we are. I'll start okay.

00:06 Hello, my name is Lynn Thompson. I'm 72 years old. Today is Tuesday, November 19th. 2019. I'm at storycorps in Atlanta and I am here with my friend Connie Lee. She's a pastor at my church First Presbyterian of Atlanta and I'm anxious to hear all of her story.

00:35 I am Connie Lee.

00:37 I am 65 years old. Today is Tuesday, November 19th, 2019.

00:46 I'm here at storycorps in Atlanta and I am with my friend Lynn Thompson.

00:56 And looking forward to sharing.

00:59 In a conversation together

01:03 Today

01:05 So Connie

01:07 What brought you to First Presbyterian Church in Atlanta?

01:13 Well, I would say Seminary.

01:18 First of all, I I was studying at Columbia Theological Seminary and one of our courses.

01:30 Gave us an opportunity to come to spend the night at the women's shelter.

01:38 That's actually located as you know on the property at First Presbyterian Church.

01:45 And we are one of a few searches in our country who has

01:57 A place for

02:01 Those persons and for us it's single women who are currently experiencing homelessness. We have that space.

02:15 On the very same properties as our worship space and I think that makes us really really unique and metropolitan Atlanta, but I started with the opportunity to service a spend the night volunteer and what that means for our Women's Center is that you spend the night as as really just as an adult.

02:54 Provider of making the ladies feel at home extending that Hospitality that the church is called to extend. We currently serve single women who are working.

03:15 And that is without children. They must have at least a part-time job in order to qualify for staying and we have 12 beds that are available and we do our very best to keep those beds filled because there are a lot of women.

03:43 Who are currently without their own homes? And we feel that that's one of our

03:54 One of our special pieces that we have been called to address.

04:06 It's safe and they can save up some money and probably get an apartment or some type of living Arrangement where they would be on their own. Yes Lynn, that is correct. We have learned through the years and I must say that.

04:29 We started out.

04:32 As the First Presbyterian Church women's shelter. So we actually started out addressing or attempting to address the needs of women who needed a bed, right, you know that night or the next day or what not but as we worked at it, we began to realize that many of those ladies really needed more attention and more care than we were able to provide in other words. They needed a special type of care and that being something that would come through the mental health.

05:22 Area because many of the ladies had experienced trauma.

05:29 In their lifetimes or they had experienced.

05:34 Other things that cause them to be depressed or or or perhaps they simply had a mental illness.

05:47 But

05:49 Having good hearts and wanting to serve the Lord that that's that's certainly who we are and who we are called to be but when you get in a living in our world today, we realize that sometimes people need medications to help them to to be able to function at their best selves. Therefore we threw or through the years as we continue to work at it. We just simply continue to try and improve

06:28 On our performances and all outcomes and through that.

06:36 Through that process we were able to determine that the best.

06:43 Fit for us would be single ladies who we're already working because of the fact that the housing is there on Church property that meant that there is still a need for the ladies to be gone during the day so that the church could continue to function as it as it would on a normal basis and and then we were able to recruit volunteers to come in in the evening some volunteers would provide a meal so we ask for a meal. We need Mills 365 days of the year.

07:28 Therefore we ask volunteers to serve as as those persons who would prepare.

07:37 Dinner for at least 12 ladies plus the volunteers who are staying so really in the end it would end up being about 17 people and

07:53 To our amazement. The Lord has continue to provide each and every evening. Yes, I would make a dinner and I would make the whole thing myself and I was much younger so I could do all that and the ladies called me the Cabbage ladies the Cabbage lady because whenever I came I cooked homemade or whatever else I was serving. I made cabbage so they called me the Cabbage lady. I was the only person that ever brought cooked cabbage. I bet you were they loved is the Cabbage lady. I know they enjoyed a cabbage because that is you know often times you don't get the home cook meals. So yes.

08:53 The ladies always enjoy home cook meals.

08:59 With a deep Faith background and tell me about your family and your your involvement with the church when you were a young person. Well as a young person growing up. I was raised in the family of well, first of all, my mom and dad.

09:22 And then I was a single child. I did not have sisters and brothers and because I did not have sisters or brothers. I always wanted people to come over and spend the night with with us and then I guess around the age of nine my parents decided they would adopt a child and it so I received a brother a baby brother. He was three months old at the time. His name was Reginald and Reggie and I grew up rich as I'm sure you would know if you did you grow up in the south.

10:12 Donut say I'm like, well, that's one thing about the South if you if you have a sister or brother who's younger than you you were sort of automatically picked to serve as the babysitter just me. I did I did my share of making sure that my brother was safe and and my parents were

10:48 On both sides of of my family both my mother's family as well as my father's family. They attended church on a regular basis my

11:04 Father served as the hymn choir leader

11:10 And at some point some maybe sometime later I'll be able to tell you about the hymn choir because the hill choir singing songs that other people didn't sing or couldn't saying or what not but it was because they saying it based on the meters and so the tunes would would be already prescribed based on whether it's a common meter short meter or or such but that's for another time. I know.

11:44 However, we attended church every Sunday.

11:50 For the most part and we attended Sunday school Sunday school was a a big part of our in the way that we were raised and of course during the summer time. We would have vacation bible school and I always enjoyed going to Vacation Bible School because children from the neighborhood would actually participate in an hour Bible school and at the end of the Bible school, there will always be a celebration like we would be able to go to a park save to a park that has a swimming pool and that was something that was really really special for us to be able to go swimming and have picnic lunch lunches. And you know, that was just a a fun time. So they made learning fun as well.

12:50 Right and you obviously learned a lot. I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.

13:00 About your immediate family today your husband is well my immediate family today consists of my husband gentle Lee and his name is

13:18 A little unusual

13:21 In that his father and grandfather were named gentle. He is actually gentle lead the third. Yes, but I in 1992 he and I were married September 5th. That was the Labor Day of that year and

13:50 We said we were intentionally bringing two families together.

13:58 His family and my family and that is how we have attempted to live our lives based on our family traditions just and as a part of that he and I have seven children together.

14:21 We have

14:24 I believe.

14:26 12 or 13 grandchildren and about

14:32 Five great-grandchildren and we do have a large family now and it's really surprising when I look back over it because

14:45 Coming from you know, just a small very small family up myself. Yes, it it really is something to see the group when we all get together and with all the little ones.

15:00 It's it is indeed a enriching and enriching time just to see how the Lord is providing for each of us. Yes, tell me.

15:19 How you came to be the associate pastor of community services with First Press?

15:28 Well before

15:32 That particular position. I started my time with First Presbyterian on staff as the director for

15:48 The mission and Community Partnership with Hillside

15:55 And once I was ordained then I became the pastor for the hillside First Presbyterian partnership Ministry know about Hillside. So tell me about Hillside. Is it another Presbyterian Church? Yes. It is. Hillside is located in Decatur.

16:16 And as you know Decatur is really just the

16:22 About what 10 to 15 miles from First Presbyterian. It is a predominantly African-American congregation. It is a much smaller congregation in that at that time.

16:41 We had about I'd say 150 members.

16:48 And as you know first has maintained a presently 2000 close to 2,000 maybe 1900 members on the rolls, so it was very

17:06 Interesting for me to get the opportunity to serve each or both of these congregations at the same time and my position was to focus our efforts in serving our community in both both places to cater as well as their downtown Atlanta.

17:34 And also focusing on Refugee resettlement.

17:40 International Mission and criminal justice. So those were our four major areas of focus and within each of those Ministry areas, there were little things that we did with other partners and Atlanta bar in the metropolitan Atlanta area, for instance. We worked with

18:10 The Georgia Justice project. Have you heard of the Georgia Justice project? Yes.

18:21 Has a group of

18:25 Previously incarcerated. Oh, yes. That's true that they do they get together each each month and that is part of the Community Ministries. It has now come under Community Ministries in that our director.

18:49 Serves as the person directing those services to

18:56 The name of the program is redemption after prison, so I rap Ministries.

19:05 Redemption after prison. Yeah that and that serve that Ministry serves a group of men who have for the most part spent an extended. Of time most most of them close to 20 years in prison, but once they get out

19:33 They are.

19:36 Given an opportunity to get a Marta card. And as you know for us Marla Martha is our public transportation many people do not have the

19:55 Really close to $25 a week that you would need in order to get a weekly Marta card.

20:04 Therefore for those men who are coming out. We provide them with a weekly Marta card for them to be able to look for the employment initially. And once they receive their employment once they are hired we can give them a Marta card for at least two.

20:29 Extended weeks of time so that they will be able to you know, get back and forth to work until they received their first paycheck and that has been a practice that we've used in several of the Ministries that fall within Community. We help the DeKalb County Drug Court, which is a wonderful wonderful.

20:59 Organization that has come directly out of the court system itself. The courts have learned that giving people of fine and giving them time does not.

21:16 Always answer the the need oftentimes there is a root cause of a person appearing before a judge and and it took a judge recognizing the fact that he had already sentenced a a gentleman to a long sentence and yet the gentleman was back before him for some type of of violation and and he began to say what is causing this man to continue to appear before me.

21:58 It's sort of like, you know, where all these fish coming from. Let's go up the river and find out where they're actually coming from. Well, he decided he would get to the root cause of what's why this man is appearing before him and it was drug addiction. Therefore he be they began to figure out how to put together these particular courts and I was so amazed. I'll never forget the first time. I went to one of the Court sessions. I heard the judge say mr. Mobly. How are you doing today?

22:42 Now when have you heard a judge as being a criminal a person who is standing in in his court for for doing something, you know AES broken the law and some ask how are you doing? But the young man obviously trusted the judge enough to say judge. I fell off the wagon this week. I didn't I did not do well, but I know what I did wrong.

23:13 The judge asked them, you know, if he was sure and he said okay, mr. Mobly. Well, we we believe that you're going to be able to get it together and therefore we're going to

23:28 Make sure that you attend your meetings and I want to I will see you there next Friday to talk with you to see how you how you do this next week. Okay, and and he said all right. He said you have a good week and you know and it was person after person that the person that he did this with and I left out of the Court feeling just so astounded and grateful for having the opportunity to even see this before my eyes. I would never have believed a real judge and a real courtroom would have treated.

24:11 The people who came in the court.

24:16 As kindly as they as they did.

24:20 And and then to learn that their recidivism rate.

24:25 Was down to I mean hardly anyone hardly anyone failed are the anyone return is a play Camp. They need the help. They need to know but it's not you know what it was just fabulous being able to watch them because the judge was real honest with us when you know, when we we said, you know, we're here, how can we help you? He said what really many of the people who we're working with they have not been able to see their children because they going to burn some bridges and family with the family life and all and therefore they are behind they have been behind with their child support and now they're catching up your child support, but they really need to be involved in.

25:25 Some good activities, you know just hold some activities and we thought about it and and said, okay what why don't we have what we call a family fun night.

25:38 And we said okay. Let's let's see what we can do and we sure know if we ask people from each congregation to help us because we wanted to provide this opportunity for the participants in the DeKalb County Drug Court and their families and they asked okay well about how many people should we expect and we we were told well, perhaps a hundred and so we thought okay, we'll have food will get them in you together and we'll have some games and and we'll just see how it goes and we'll have a will get let's get some cakes. I remember we. Okay, we'll have cakes.

26:25 Serena off we tried the family fun night and it was a huge huge success in that there were two families who had their social worker to bring the children to meet with their parent a mother or father and their under our supervision. They were able to play the games. They were able to get into Jump by The Bouncing house and just have lots of fun and then eat a great meal and and we ended it with a cakewalk. What we would do is weed actually have people to

27:25 Get a weed start the music like musical chairs and start the music the music and then you take the call the number and and Serena. Oh my goodness. The families were just overjoyed. And and finally we waited. Okay, we can only have one cake per family and that we had me so you make adjustments as you go through with the years, but it it was just a wonderful wonderful opportunity for everyone involved. So that means members from both congregations the court system itself, and then the families that were being brought back together and I thought isn't this wonderful to to get another glimpse of the kingdom of God because there were people from so many different backgrounds together. We specifically invited our Refugee families.

28:25 Two common participate and and so they enjoyed being able to be a part of it. We've learned through the years that that yeah that it was just a wonderful time with this Hillside and First Presbyterian. Yes, we have not done the family fun night for the past year because what happened once I left the position of serving as the pastor to the partnership then that left a hole. We identify the person who we thought could serve but because the hours were dramatically cut, you know, you must have funding for for someone who would take this on and take it on as a full-time position.

29:25 Because the work is full time the work really is full-time and the work is actually more than full-time. But and it just to it does take a lot of energy. It takes a lot of volunteers helping so there are just a number of different things that begin to sort of erode away. And one of those things was our family fun night and but I do feel like now the DeKalb County Drug Court is at a place where they have other

30:04 Other agencies that are interested in them now because they have a successful record see when we came into the picture. There was no success record, but but clearly

30:17 There

30:19 With us being a successful as we were and and the the participants enjoying it the way they did because then they started taking on a lot more of the of the of the work when you know, but my bulk of the work and that is really what has happened. They have taken it on and they are able to do it but we do still provide them with Marta cards for a number of participants each week. Yeah, that's one way that we are still continuing still have a finger there. Let me ask you what haven't we talked about and I know there must be a million things, but what haven't we talked about that you would like the listeners to know about you or something that you accomplished at our church or

31:19 Something that that made you happy something that made you cry. What do you like for anyone that listens to this in years, but would you like them to know about you and First Presbyterian Church. I would like for our listeners to know that we

31:41 Everything we did we did.

31:45 Out of our what? We called a Micah 6 mandate in the Hebrew scriptures or for those of us who are Christians. We say the Old Testament and our Old Testament the prophet Micah.

32:03 Was asking a question.

32:07 And and Willie the question was what does the Lord require of you but to do justice to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God that is the Mandate and the mantle that we wrapped ourselves in and the work that we did was it was really not work at all. It was something that we really enjoyed being able to do. We realize that it was a privilege to be able to see families being changed.

32:52 Women

32:54 Women's lives being changed

32:59 Agencies

33:01 Changing the way they do things. So sometimes it's it's a matter of us. Just pausing a bit looking around our sales and and and observing what others are doing and how they're doing it and asking a question. What what can I do to assist? How can I help?

33:26 What way can I help?

33:29 And usually people are willing to tell you how you can help them. It's just a matter of us listening.

33:36 And asking the right question asking the right questions listening to those answers and allowing those answers rather than I own preconceived ideas about it to drive us. Let's listen to what people are saying. Sometimes it is hard to do because we and it's like maybe we should ask the person that is being impacted by this awful situation, right? We are learning as we go along. There were a couple of other things that your your ministry covered up more about a couple of those I think our partnership okay with Hillside also.

34:30 Well, one of the

34:33 I think most impactful pieces that we did together as two congregations working together to to assist in changing lives.

34:51 That was our tutoring Ministry with students at Snapfinger Elementary.

35:00 Snapfinger Elementary is a a school.

35:06 Dads

35:08 Located in the hillside community and members from both congregations would give them their time and service tutors for students in this Elementary School. And the reason we decided that we would do this is because we learned that there are persons who are looking at.

35:42 Third graders and realizing that if a child does not read on 3rd grade level.

35:51 That they will more than likely end up in prison. Therefore they were looking at that number as a projection of the number of Prisons that would be needed to to be built and are therefore we decided no, we want to help children stay away from the criminal justice system. And and we realize that that was one of the best ways that we could impact that.

36:29 Particular

36:31 Storage before it ever happen. Yes grade. You learn to read in third grade on you need to learn. Okay still earn to learn they're going to fall further and further back. Alright, that's right. And then they drop out exactly that's that's what happens, but it does take us.

37:01 You know making the time to look around and say wait a minute what's wrong with this picture? Something is wrong and we can see when there's something wrong and we know within ourselves.

37:18 When there's something wrong with a particular system.

37:23 Therefore the criminal justice system is one that we know we must be involved in and Christians to be involved in it at such an early, right?

37:35 Every event that's right. In order to prevent. That's right. Then we don't have to do the MARTA cards for the person coming out of prison. That's right. Yes. Yes, which way do you look at the waist look at the

37:51 You know the the impact on the community the impact on the family. So we we will continue to look for ways to serve you are just one of my favorite people at my church course, I tell that to everybody. I thank you so much for your service with us at the members of our church and for the people in our community that you have helped through life struggles and you had just had an inspiration to so many of us and I thank you, and I love you for it Lynn. Thank you so very much for the privilege to serve. I am just so glad that you come along with me beside me to help in this work. So thank you for your help and like you say Enjoy in it.

38:52 I will just continue and I thank you our listeners for listening to our

38:59 Chat, thank you all so very much be blessed.