FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Souls Harbour Rescue Mission announces the release of ‘Souls Harbour: Stories from Souls Harbour Rescue Mission’, authored by co-founder Ken Porter

HALIFAX, NS, November 2020  Ten years ago Ken and Michelle Porter arrived in Halifax with enthusiasm and dreams and not a lot else.  Over those ten years they have seen more and more of those dreams become reality.  From serving up to 250 daily at their drop in centre to finishing up renovations on a Life Recovery Shelter.  From opening a satellite location in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, to a second outreach in Truro, Nova Scotia.  And two years ago this weekend they opened up Souls Harbour Mission Mart, a social enterprise with all proceeds going towards their drop in centres and shelter.  

This wasn't Porter's first Rescue Mission plant though. Ken and Michelle have been involved in multiple Rescue Missions across Canada over the past 30 years.  In 1999 they moved to Regina, Saskatchewan with the same dreams.  It started with renting a “crack shack” and turned into one of the province’s largest charities with multiple locations including a soup kitchen, a women’s recovery home, a youth centre, a daycare, low income housing and more.  

Through it all Ken Porter kept detailed journals with the hope of turning it one day into a book.  And this week, that day has arrived!  Just in time for the holidays, Souls Harbour: Stories from Souls Harbour Rescue Mission is the perfect local gift.  Detailing the past 30 years of inner city ministry, the stories will both shock and amaze the reader.  Lives transformed over and over again, reminding us that there is hope in the midst of darkness. 

‘Souls Harbour: Stories from Souls Harbour Rescue Mission’ book launch is this Saturday, November 14th at Souls Harbour Mission Mart.  Ken will be onsite Saturday & Sunday (9:00 - 5:00) for book signing.  100% of the profits will stay in Nova Scotia, and 100% of the profits will be used for the work of Souls Harbour in helping the hungry, homeless, addicted and abused.  Now that’s a meaningful Christmas gift you can feel good about. 

‘Souls Harbour: Stories from Souls Harbour Rescue Mission’, published by Glen Margaret Publishing in Tantallon, NS, is available for purchase at Mission Mart, 265 Susie Lake Crescent; local Chapters, Indigo Spirit and Coles bookstores, or online at Indigo.ca - https://bit.ly/SoulsHarbourBook

For more information on this weekend’s book release, text or call Michelle Porter at 902-999-5572 or email mporter.rescue@gmail.com.

Love in the trenches                         

Author Ken Porter and his wife, Michelle

☆☆☆☆☆

5 out of 5 stars.

MichellePorter · a month ago  

This book was hard to put down, and I lived the stories myself! It's not really a history book or a boring memoir. It's tales of hope and inspiration woven throughout Ken's travels across Canada's inner cities. It's men and women, once down and out, lifted up and through. It's  walking on coals of fire, sleeping on nails, 1000 push ups. It's these great feats of the heart that show how one person can make a huge difference in their everyday life.

100% of the proceeds of this book are being donated to the LIFE Recovery Shelter at Souls Harbour Rescue Mission in Nova Scotia.

Excerpt from opening chapter of the book:

On a crisp early morning, I wheeled my bike out the back-door loading dock of the Mission. I was determined to get myself back into shape after years of avoiding exercise. 

I also wanted to clear the mental and spiritual cobwebs that had collected in the corners of my mind after living and working among hundreds of homeless, poor and addicted people. It no longer thrilled me just to feed a hungry person or to offer recovery to an addict. I was close to burnout.

As my body grudgingly warmed up to the exercise, I enjoyed the serenity of the streets — devoid of people and all their problems.  

No less than five minutes later, I turned a corner by an abandoned railway track and was startled by a shadowy figure stumbling towards me. It was a woman in her 20s, wearing shorts and a T-shirt in temperatures barely above freezing.

 

 “Mmm hungry … ’n’ cold,” she slurred.  

She probably had been prostituting herself all night. This was a street where women did sex work for very little money. She smelled of alcohol and glue.  

I stopped my bike and looked back at her. Here was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister — freezing, hungry, alone and miserably lost. I had nothing to give her at that moment and there was nothing I could really do. 

  

Had my heart really become jaded to the point that I could pass her by without a kind thought? 

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