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Rescue, Rebuild, Restore: Compassion That Works
Rescue, Rebuild, Compassion That Works
By Suzanne Burns
What does it truly mean to love “the least of these” as Jesus calls us to in Matthew 25:40? In a world of poverty, trauma, addiction, and mental health struggles, compassion alone isn’t enough—wisdom is essential. Rescue, Rebuild, Restore is a heartfelt and practical guide for church members, volunteers, and ministry leaders ready to serve those in crisis with grace, patience, and unwavering faith.
Drawing from her transformative work at Foundation House Ministries, author Suzanne Burns unveils the Rescue, Rebuild, Restore (RRR) framework—a God-inspired approach to rescuing the broken, rebuilding lives with dignity, and restoring hope for lasting change. With raw honesty, Burns shares stories of mothers and families in despair, revealing why they act the way they do, how the odds are stacked against them, and what it takes to help without being manipulated or burned out.
Rooted in biblical wisdom and seasoned with practical tools, this book tackles the tough Why do good intentions sometimes fail? How do we love unconditionally without enabling? From debunking myths that trap us to navigating the emotional cycles of change, Burns equips you to serve your unique calling—whether it’s the homeless on your streets, resilient kids in your neighborhood, or young families lost to drugs and fatherlessness.
More than a manual, Rescue, Rebuild, Restore is a call to fall passionately in love with those God has placed in your path, laying down ego and false beliefs to partner with Him in their transformation. Discover why they’re worth your sacrifice, how deeply the Lord loves them, and what you can do—big or small—to bring His promises to life. Are you ready to join the sacred journey of rescuing, rebuilding, and restoring souls, one heart at a time?
By Suzanne Burns
What does it truly mean to love “the least of these” as Jesus calls us to in Matthew 25:40? In a world of poverty, trauma, addiction, and mental health struggles, compassion alone isn’t enough—wisdom is essential. Rescue, Rebuild, Restore is a heartfelt and practical guide for church members, volunteers, and ministry leaders ready to serve those in crisis with grace, patience, and unwavering faith.
Drawing from her transformative work at Foundation House Ministries, author Suzanne Burns unveils the Rescue, Rebuild, Restore (RRR) framework—a God-inspired approach to rescuing the broken, rebuilding lives with dignity, and restoring hope for lasting change. With raw honesty, Burns shares stories of mothers and families in despair, revealing why they act the way they do, how the odds are stacked against them, and what it takes to help without being manipulated or burned out.
Rooted in biblical wisdom and seasoned with practical tools, this book tackles the tough Why do good intentions sometimes fail? How do we love unconditionally without enabling? From debunking myths that trap us to navigating the emotional cycles of change, Burns equips you to serve your unique calling—whether it’s the homeless on your streets, resilient kids in your neighborhood, or young families lost to drugs and fatherlessness.
More than a manual, Rescue, Rebuild, Restore is a call to fall passionately in love with those God has placed in your path, laying down ego and false beliefs to partner with Him in their transformation. Discover why they’re worth your sacrifice, how deeply the Lord loves them, and what you can do—big or small—to bring His promises to life. Are you ready to join the sacred journey of rescuing, rebuilding, and restoring souls, one heart at a time?
165 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 11, 2025
About the author
Suzanne Burns
42 books21 followersI am an author from Central Oregon. After focusing on poetry for several years, which culminated in the publication of two full-length collections, Blight (Archer Books) and The Flesh Procession (Bleak House Books) I am now working on fiction. Future Tense Books released a two-story flipbook this year called Double Header. In June of 2009, Dzanc Books published my short story collection, Misfits and Other Heroes.
Advanced Praise for Misfits and Other Heroes:
"This is no ordinary collection. In Misfits and Other Heroes Burns writes of disproportion, excess, reinvention, and lack as a means of magnifying outward physical irregularities to better reveal the inner irregularities of her characters. Burns is unafraid to explore the dark territory of human heart where love and hate are twins for desire and dread. The many brilliant moments of character, language, and startling observations indicate Burns is a keen observer of the wretched and wonderful human creature. In Burns' capable hands the grotesque becomes achingly familiar: the misfits she writes about are us."
—Gina Oschner, author of People I Wanted to Be
"Suzanne Burns's "heroes" in Misfits and Other Heroes may at first seem just the other side of real, but in their obsessions with food and love and their stories' perfectly odd specificity, they're as real and credible as Americans can be, whether they're a tiny husband carried around in a bird cage by his wife or a woman who prefers to eat glass rather than dumplings or a couple attached to a dollhouse. Who would have thought that Oregon's misfits could be as deluded and cruel as Flannery O'Connor's Southerners and even more bizarre?"
—Tom Whalen, author of Dolls
"Misfits and Other Heroes shows what happens when relationships get downright weird between adorably flawed and familiar characters. Take a good, long look into Burns' funhouse mirror and find yourself anew."
—Trevor Dodge, author of Everyone I Know Lives on Roads
Adventures in the material world, enigmas of food, flesh, the fate of
names, Suzanne Burns's words remark their downfall, know gravity. Not her lightest ploy but feels its weight, not even this now but suffers time. Writing sentences love to death, but if these fictions be believed, Burns will have it no other way.
--R. M. Berry
Misfits [what an understatement!] and Other Heroes [ditto!] brings out the squarest of society's pegs and their tragic, funny, and ultimately moving attempts to find each other and carve out some space among the roundest of society's holes. They are as matched as America's tiniest man and the woman who understands his need to be kept in a birdcage, or as mismatched as sweet-toothed men who long for anorexic women. They are magicians and firefighters, chefs and the other characters able to "contemplate eternity over an empty pie plate." Burns writes that "the world remembers giants" but her stories recall to us the misfit in everyone: a very humane, if not out and out heroic, work of fiction. --Steve Tomasula
Advanced Praise for Misfits and Other Heroes:
"This is no ordinary collection. In Misfits and Other Heroes Burns writes of disproportion, excess, reinvention, and lack as a means of magnifying outward physical irregularities to better reveal the inner irregularities of her characters. Burns is unafraid to explore the dark territory of human heart where love and hate are twins for desire and dread. The many brilliant moments of character, language, and startling observations indicate Burns is a keen observer of the wretched and wonderful human creature. In Burns' capable hands the grotesque becomes achingly familiar: the misfits she writes about are us."
—Gina Oschner, author of People I Wanted to Be
"Suzanne Burns's "heroes" in Misfits and Other Heroes may at first seem just the other side of real, but in their obsessions with food and love and their stories' perfectly odd specificity, they're as real and credible as Americans can be, whether they're a tiny husband carried around in a bird cage by his wife or a woman who prefers to eat glass rather than dumplings or a couple attached to a dollhouse. Who would have thought that Oregon's misfits could be as deluded and cruel as Flannery O'Connor's Southerners and even more bizarre?"
—Tom Whalen, author of Dolls
"Misfits and Other Heroes shows what happens when relationships get downright weird between adorably flawed and familiar characters. Take a good, long look into Burns' funhouse mirror and find yourself anew."
—Trevor Dodge, author of Everyone I Know Lives on Roads
Adventures in the material world, enigmas of food, flesh, the fate of
names, Suzanne Burns's words remark their downfall, know gravity. Not her lightest ploy but feels its weight, not even this now but suffers time. Writing sentences love to death, but if these fictions be believed, Burns will have it no other way.
--R. M. Berry
Misfits [what an understatement!] and Other Heroes [ditto!] brings out the squarest of society's pegs and their tragic, funny, and ultimately moving attempts to find each other and carve out some space among the roundest of society's holes. They are as matched as America's tiniest man and the woman who understands his need to be kept in a birdcage, or as mismatched as sweet-toothed men who long for anorexic women. They are magicians and firefighters, chefs and the other characters able to "contemplate eternity over an empty pie plate." Burns writes that "the world remembers giants" but her stories recall to us the misfit in everyone: a very humane, if not out and out heroic, work of fiction. --Steve Tomasula
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