Each week Pam gets up in the early hours of the morning to provide her famous sausage, egg and bacon rolls for up to 55 battlers in Quota Park, Nambour.
“Over two years ago the Lord spoke to my heart through Matthew 25,” she says, “‘I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink,’ I knew, when I read this, that he wanted me to do something for the homeless”
“I believe He was asking me to care for them spiritually through prayer but also in the natural by ‘feeding’ them.”
For the last two years Pam has consistently loved and cared for those who come to the Park earning the trust of those who, she says, “can be a very sensitive and private bunch.”
“What motivated you to begin this outreach and what gets you up in the morning each week?” I asked.
Carefully considering her answer to the question Pam looked off into a distant place beyond where I sat. “I know I would have ended up just like them if I hadn’t found God,” she said, “the lifestyle I was in made it a surety that I would either be like them … or worse … in the gutter!”
I could see that a myriad of pictures from her past were flitting through her mind, “It was only because Jesus saved me that my life was turned around, before that I felt I was just dirt,” she said. “I was nothing.”
There has been such a transformation in her own life since finding the Lord that her 'old life feels more like an old movie she once watched'. The Lord has healed so much of the pain she carried for so long; the same pain that she recognizes in the lives of those who come to the park each week.
Few people meeting Pam today would realise how close she had been to the edge before meeting the Lord. Life had systematically stripped her self esteem and twenty years of perpetual partying had failed to drown out the loneliness that forever ached inside.
Her family hadn’t gone to church. Her mother had grown up in a strict Methodist household and was made to go to church every day of the week; she was determined that her own children would choose what they believed for themselves. Pam’s grandmother would occasionally drag her along to church when she was young, but drag was certainly the operative word as she hated going.
Her father was ‘an abusive drunk’ whose bullying broke her mother’s heart. When Pam’s baby sister died from an infection, grief and the fact that her husband blamed her, wore her mother down and she also became an alcoholic.
Pam lived in fear of her father’s violent assaults from a young age as well as regular sexual abuse from predatory family friends. When her father worked at a Men’s Camp in the Snowy Mountains she also found herself at the mercy of strangers who would force sexual favours from her, threatening to kill her if she told anyone.
Her early years cast a mould for her life that was characterized by a violent temper, anger, bitterness and a deep sense of worthlessness. She could fly into a fiercesome rage where the world seemed to take on a reddish hue and she lost control of what she was doing. She would break or throw whatever was at hand and feel nothing until her temper subsided. Sadly those closest to her would bear the brunt of her pain.
Pam’s first husband was a womanizer. Her Clairvoyant mother-in-law introduced her to the world of Tarot and Seances. She entered into a de facto relationship after her marriage failed but could not tolerate her partner’s violence.
Her second marriage vows were taken in a Spiritualist church. “My family had always been aware of spiritual realms and were particularly interested in the supernatural, they were very psychic,” Pam explained. She read every book she could find, anything that would help her understand life after death and the spirit world. She studied and taught herself Palm reading. At one time she even became fascinated by the spiritual beliefs of the American Indians and her house was filled with artefacts from their teachings.
“Throughout all I have been through,” Pam says, “I can see that God has had his hand upon my life.” She had no Church background but three of her grandparents were Christians. Their faith must have influenced her because there were many times, when life had no answers that Pam turned instinctively to God in prayer.
Patricia, her oldest daughter, sat with us as we chatted and recalled the time when her mum had thrown a knife at her. “I was so angry at her I grabbed the nearest thing to me and threw it,” Pam said, “In the split second that the knife left my hand I realised what I had done and prayed to God that it would miss her!”
Another time, when Patricia’s newborn baby girl was born without a bowel Pam had prayed desperately for God to heal her. “Renee only lived for a few days but it was God that I turned to for help at that time.”
There was sadness in Pam’s eyes as she remembered the times when she took out her frustration on Patricia. “I was so unhappy inside that I vented it on her,” she said, recalling giving her many a ‘belting’ on the backside.’
Pam was around thirty when her first marriage failed and the pub became the centre of her social life. “I became a party animal,” she said, “partying every night of the week except one.” In the daytime she worked as a cleaner in the evenings she drank and smoked and meddled with Pot.
“I was totally unreliable,” she said, “My daughter could not trust me enough to leave her children with me because I would get so drunk. Also my house wasn’t safe for them as I found out later that some of my friends were giving the kids alcohol.” She had used up most of her favours and even her children were beginning to tire of the constant trouble associated with their mother. She had tried to kill herself three times and was on a fast track for destruction.
Patricia smiled, whimsically nodding as she listened to her mum. She was the first amongst Pam’s children to accept Jesus in her life and it was clear to see that the past has been dealt with and forgiven. The Lord had restored a friendship between them that had once been stretched beyond all reasonable bounds. They obviously have a deep love and respect for each other and Patricia’s prayers had been instrumental in bringing Pam to the Lord.
About a year before Pam was saved she found that she couldn’t touch her Tarot cards. Patricia laughed as she told me that she had begun to get together with a friend to pray for her mum and that God was beginning to put a wedge between her and the things that kept her from Him. Pam also remembered the countless times when she planned to go to her Spiritualist meetings that something would happen to stop her getting there.
The girls prayed continually for Truth to be revealed to her and for the Lord to touch her life.
One particular night eleven years ago, is indelibly etched in Pam’s mind. Patricia tried to tell her about Jesus and invited her along to Church. Pam remembered the argument that followed, “don’t talk to me about that garbage” she had shouted. Eventually she succumbed and went along the next day.
She cannot remember leaving her seat and walking down to the front of the Church but she did. She gave her heart to the Lord.
For the next three months Pam could barely stop herself crying as the Lord began to set her free from her tangled past.
“The greatest gift Jesus gave to me was acceptance.’ “I had been lonely and felt rejected for so long, and had thought I was worth nothing.”
Some of her healing came instantly; her drinking stopped very quickly, and some came gradually. “Sometimes I would be in God’s hand being shaped like clay on the Potter’s wheel,” Pam told me, “At others I would fall off … SPLAT on the ground until He picked me up and put me right again.”
Today Pam knows that God accepts her as she is and that she doesn’t have to do anything to earn that acceptance. She doesn’t feel the need to please man as she used to, or to try and make people like her and has found great peace in her life because of this.
She can love herself because she can see herself through God’s eyes and she knows that He has only the deepest love for her.
Helping Pam to help the Homeless
Suncoast Care provides the food and drink for the breakfasts in the Park but there is always a need for volunteers in the area of food preparation, cooking as well as those who have a heart to come along and chat with the people in the park.
Food Van
Pam and Suncoast Care are currently looking for a food van with a fridge and kitchen that will help them provide breakfasts for more people on the Sunshine Coast.
Your prayers will be appreciated as they need a van that will pass Council regulations as well as the finances to be able to purchase it.
Jupiters have kindly donated $17,000 towards the cost of this van but more will be needed.
Bev Holmes-Brown lives in Brisbane, Australia. In 2001 she began Link-Zone, a Christian Resource ministry with a mandate to “Bring the Body together in specific interest areas and to Believe and Pray for the Reformation of Values, Systems and Wisdom.“
In the last nine years Link-Zone has focussed on praying for governments, communities and ministries. ‘We are currently transitioning,’ Bev says, ‘believing the Lord wants us to begin to tell people’s stories. There are so many people living amazing and victorious lives for God against the odds, we want to hear from them, to understand their hearts and glean the treasures that God has laid up in their hearts for our own breakthroughs. Of course we will continue to feature our favourite columnists and will not give up on praying but we believe this is a season where God wants us to identify and clarify the frontlines that need our support. It’s exciting to venture into whatever He lays upon our heart.
Link-Zone does not necessarily endorse the views held by contributors, or by authors of linked websites. The material in the Link-Zone site is provided for your information to assist you in forming your own opinion. It is Link-Zone's hope that you are able to find quality resources that will help you in your research of contemporary debates and issues. We are also unable to endorse the content of external sites linked to via Link-Zone pages & advise that you exercise proper caution when visiting websites you are unfamiliar with.
Pam Reid: A Heart for the Homeless 
