Friday night I loaned my van for a few days to someone formerly homeless in our church family. Her family lived in our building this summer until finding a new place.
Yesterday, another church member learned their housing with family may end at any moment. For years, this person has tirelessly worked two jobs to make ends meet. Could we help if they suddenly become homeless?
Today, I helped the funeral director (also part of our church family) prepare for a service. He and his wife are running the funeral today without any paid staff, keeping costs down for the grieving family.
Before returning home, we discussed more plans for renovating our aging facility. Always trying to steward the money God gives, we’ll buy material at a Construction Surplus and do the work ourselves. [Ok, associate Pastor Jordan Buchner will work and I’ll watch 😜]
At the same time this morning, a Haitian church was meeting in our gym chapel. Immigrants from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere gather each week for worship in our building, and pay a nominal rent compared to anywhere else. Tonight they asked about using a room for ESL classes because, as one member put it, “a lot of our people can’t speak English very well.” They’ll meet in the room that serves as a computer lab for our summer day camp and feeding program.
A Unique Call
God has called Renovation Community to a unique work- serving our neighborhood’s poor, marginalized, and overlooked…and opening our doors when others have closed them.
As we follow God on this path, He provides all we need for the journey…often through His generous people.
The three pictures show the unrequested checks that arrived in today’s mail…
“What a serene and quiet life might you lead if you would leave providing to the God of providence! With a little oil in the cruse, and a handful of meal in the barrel, Elijah outlived the famine, and you will do the same. If God cares for you, why need you care too? Can you trust Him for your soul, and not for your body? He has never refused to bear your burdens, He has never fainted under their weight. Come, then, soul! have done with fretful care, and leave all thy concerns in the hand of a gracious God.” —Charles Spurgeon
He is faithful.