By: Amanda Niess

Word on the Street Issue 45, July 2024

. . .

His hands carefully twist the wire, eyes illuminating with focus as another intricate beaded creation takes shape. 

This is the success story of Justin Tomlinson.

His life has been one of constant adaptation, from his Texas roots to Marine Corps service to caring for a dear friend in North Carolina. When circumstances shifted again, Justin arrived in Idaho with few possessions but an unshakeable resilience.

The tarnished beads between his hands, creating something wonderful, just as he tenaciously beaded his own dreams together. Despite the challenges, his perseverance and tenacity through multiple shelters and a housing waitlist led him to where he is today: housed.

“I’m moving out,” he said. “I finally got my own place.” 

Justin is a talented crafter with a passion for making jewelry, tumbling rocks, beading, and mending mismatched pieces–breathing new life into objects. His warm smile and infectious attitude provide rays of positivity for himself and others. 

Justin’s calloused fingers tumble rocks with the same determined patience that shaped his life’s journey from hardship to hope. Each stone’s potential mirrors the brilliant future he has created for himself through grit, goodwill and an artist’s vision.

He has a gift for healing, despite the cards he was dealt early on in life. Justin is an integral part of what makes Interfaith Sanctuary a special, caring environment through his good-hearted nature and ability to bring people together. 

Justin is generous in spirit, using his skills to go beyond the physical objects–it’s a vehicle for mending emotional bonds and healing connections within the shelter community. 

This is his happy place – crafting beauty from simple materials through patience and creativity. However, he now has the potential to create another happy place–his new apartment, hard-won after decades shared with his late wife and friends. A crafter’s paradise.

“I’m looking forward to hot showers, cooking diabetic meals, crafting in my own space, rock tumbling and of course, my queen size bed,” he said.

The Interfaith Sanctuary family will forever be Justin’s bedrock as he embarks on this new chapter, beloved crafting mentor and eternal optimist. His journey shines with the luster of a life, eagerly re-crafted, bead-by-bead, into something precious.