Good Works, Inc.

My name is Andrea Horsch, and I work in the area of development—the development of our staff as well as the way that we communicate our vision and mission to people who support us. After spending a decade overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Timothy House, this is certainly a different, but welcome season.

For years I felt called to ministry with people the world might consider difficult to love and rejected. Growing up in an economically depressed Appalachian Ohio county, the idea that my calling might take me to the other side of the world was very appealing. In fact, I spent years looking forward to leaving. I was studying missions at Kentucky Christian University when Keith shared in one of my classes. He spoke about Southeast Ohio as a place that was oppressed but dear to God. These were ideas that I had never heard before and I was glad to be invited into a summer internship in 2002 to explore what it might look like to try out my calling close to home.

What I began to discover that summer is that I am often difficult to love and that everyone experiences rejection. I began to experience the goodness of extending hospitality and care to people as part of a community. The staff helped me to learn to be kind and to listen more than I spoke. This group, the staff, is made up primarily of transplants to this area and is here on purpose to be with people from here and invest in them. Seeing them at work, earnestly and intentionally invested, I believed for the first time that it was good to be from this part of the state. It was good that our residents reminded me at every turn of my family and that the Timothy House felt like home, that Friday Night Life looked like a family reunion. It was good for me.

In the years that I’ve been on the full time staff I have come to see the importance of safe places full of safe people. In my personal life, my church life and inside Good Works I want to be a part of creating safe places; I want to grow in being a safe person and in helping other people create an atmosphere of safety. I hope that we can be the kind of community that makes it easy for the people we welcome to believe that God is love. The Lord provides endurance, wisdom, love and peace. It is truly for freedom that Christ has set us free, and it is my continuing prayer that our community could lead the people that we love into this same experience of freedom.

I enjoy this work—this act of worship—more today that I did when I first came. I am grateful that my husband, Ben, who teaches 7th grade science, has been a part of Good Works in various ways. He loves people with the love of Christ and opens his life to our neighbors in ways that inspire and encourage me. Our son, James is a great joy in our life and in the lives of our friends and family. He is strong willed, hilarious, and very sweet. When I am not working I find joy in friendships, painting, and growing and cooking food.

 

This is an article Andrea wrote called “Being the Body.”

Here are several of Andrea’s paintings: