Robert Taylor

I came to Central Union Mission at the end of twenty-odd years of fighting God. I had accepted Christ as a child, but when my first marriage ended, I felt God had fully rejected me. I rejected Him, too, based on the other “unfair” things in the world: famine, illness to good people, rape and abuse of children. A God who allowed such things was not One I cared to follow any more.

During the next several years, I learned how bad an idea it is to lean upon your own understanding. Through my behavior and choices, I drove away almost all my friends and family, and, unemployed, I just gave up completely on life. At this time in 2008, my son, whom I was living with, planned to move to California, and I wanted to join him. While he visited his mother to say goodbye, I thought I’d pass the two weeks with an interesting adventure-living on the streets of Washington, DC.

Then my son decided to stay in North Carolina with his mom. Suddenly, I really was homeless. I spent two days camping and praying on Theodore Roosevelt Island, asking God, “Help me. What should I do?” I walked to the Key Bridge, praying for God’s direction. Eventually I headed east on R Street and came up to 14th Street. Walking out of a tunnel of trees and brownstones, I saw Central Union Mission, with those wonderful words “COME UNTO ME” emblazoned on the side of the building.

I came in as an Overnight Guest, and after many days of prayer and reading the Bible that Mission Supervisor Jerome Hall gave me, I asked to join the Spiritual Transformation Program.

It has been a wondrous, challenging journey since then. I have been blessed with a fantastic job as executive assistant in the Mission executive director’s office, reconnection in relationships I had thought were beyond repair, a Word-based church in which I am very active and a wonderful, God-fearing new wife. For the first time in my life I look forward to the future with eagerness; I can’t wait to see where Christ will lead me.

Following service on the Mission staff, Robert accompanied his wife, Lauren, to Cyprus for her work with an international services agency. Rob continued his walk with the Lord until his untimely death in July, 2016.