Your Support Helped Aaron Overcome
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.
Nowhere to GoFor 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 does this guy go?’” Aaron recalls. “Everything was gone.”
A chance encounter (or a God “moment”!) 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.