'Beauty for ashes'

Ray and Gay Hopkins believe that God wants to make something good out of their recent foreclosure.

That’s why the local couple, after losing their home last summer in northern Culpeper, is starting the county’s first foreclosure support group, “Beauty for Ashes.”

It comes at a fitting time too, considering that Culpeper has one of the highest foreclosure rates statewide with 467 families losing their homes last year.

Gay, a 50-something newspaper carrier who also works part-time at the Persecution Project, named the support group for a favorite Bible verse from the Old Testament book of Isaiah.

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound … to comfort all that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”

“That is what I would like to see come out of this,” Gay said in a recent interview. “His arm is not too short.”

It was a difficult process for the Hopkins family to lose a home they had built and lived in for more than a decade.

A series of job layoffs, scant savings and mounting credit card debt literally pulled the rug out from under them, as featured in a Star-Exponent story last April.

“When you are losing everything, you kind of feel like it’s all gone up in smoke,” Gay said. “It is such a feeling of isolation, and I look in the paper and see just pages of people going through the same thing — and we don’t know each other.”

She and her husband hope to start making some connections. The first meeting of “Beauty for Ashes” will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the couple’s church — Hope Community Church of the Nazarene — at 121 E. Culpeper St.

“I really think that people who have lost their home or are in the process of losing their home need to be heard,” said Ray Hopkins, a former automotive professional who works at Wal-Mart. “We need to be heard. People need to bond together and realize they are not alone.”

Besides providing an open forum for foreclosure families, Ray and Gay hope to also offer practical education on financial topics. The couple invites housing or finance professionals to schedule some time to speak at one of their meetings on topics like how to set up a home budget, a homeowner’s legal rights or rebuilding credit after a foreclosure.

“I don’t want to just create interest among those of us who are going through it and struggling, but also others who can give input,” said Mrs. Hopkins.

Though still struggling to make ends meet, the couple knows it could be much worse. They have a rented place in the area, and their two sons are doing well at Virginia Tech. Their youngest son is still in high school and learning to adapt.

“It’s nothing like when we were living in the house, worrying about when we’d have to move, where we were going to move,” said Ray. “I’m sure our neighbors, when they found out we were going into foreclosure, they didn’t know what to say to us. People’s friends don’t know what to say, and so they stay away.”

And it only makes the situation worse, he said.

Ray and Gay want to lift the veil of shame and silence from home foreclosure and provide a forum for open and productive dialogue. They both said they had to learn some tough lessons, but that it brought them closer to their faith.

“I’ve learned that I thought my trust was in God, but my security I was really placing in other things,” Gay said of her home and material possessions. “I’ve learned that I could still live after letting go of so much.

“It was like having my skin ripped off me, but it was very liberating at the same time. I think all that stuff had weighed me down quite a bit.”

Reaching out
Ray and Gay Hopkins launch the county’s first foreclosure support group Tuesday at 7 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Hope Community Church of the Nazarene at 121 E. Culpeper St. in downtown Culpeper. It is open to the public. For more information, call (540) 272-9583 or e-mail beauty4ashes.culpeper@gmail.com