Charity auction rescheduled

We have rescheduled our charity auction for Saturday, June 5.

It was originally scheduled for this Saturday, but we haven't received enough items to have a real good auction. We want this to be a big once a year fundraising event, so we've rescheduled it to make sure it's a good auction. We want it to be one that people will remember and will want to come back to next year.

If you have any items you wish to donate, please let us know. Call Mike Shroades at 334-389-0905 or Jerry Eddings at 334-791-5296.

Congratulations Brian and Jaclyn

Click the photo for an online photo gallery of the wedding.

Martha and I and all of us at Love In Action congratulate Brian and Jaclyn Turner on their marriage today, April 10, 2010. Brian is a Love In Action board member, and they are going to make one dynamic couple for God.

We are so excited for them. They both love God and love serving Him and others. They have a real heart for the lost, the homeless, and the broken-hearted.

Their wedding was beautiful today. It was outdoors at Living Waters in Headland, Ala. It was a perfect spring day for a wedding.

The food at the reception was delicious. You know I'm going to talk about food when there is any around. :-) It was all great. The groom's cake was too cool. Rock on Brian!

Most importantly, we have an awesome godly couple married now, and I can't wait to see everything God does in them and through them. We are blessed to have both Brian and Jaclyn part of Love In Action.

We love y'all, and may God greatly bless your lives together in Him.

Abandoned in Dothan

Kellie and Martha

Why would a parent abandon a child in a strange city? That's the question Martha and I were asking ourselves Friday night.

A friend had met a young lady who was stranded in our hometown of Dothan, Ala. He gave her our phone number and said if they can help you, they will.

She called me crying. Her name was Kellie and she lives in South Carolina. She came to Dothan on a bus with her stepfather to visit her mother, who is in jail. Two days ago her stepfather disappeared without a word. Their hotel room was paid through Thursday and they had to be out by noon Friday. She kept waiting for him to return. He had told her two days ago that he found some work and was going to do that to make a little extra money, but he never returned.

She checked the hospitals and the jail, but he wasn't at those places. She was scared and didn't know what to do. Thankfully, we could help her.

Martha and I picked her up and Martha instantly gave her a hug of assurance that everything was going to be OK. Kellie was crying and kept saying, "I can't believe he left me. I can't believe he left me."

We were able to purchase her a bus ticket, and the lady at the Dothan bus station did a great job of finding a good route for her. At first, the next bus for Kellie's destination wasn't going to arrive in Dothan until 2 a.m. But Judy kept looking and found a route where she could leave at 7:30 Friday night and arrive home Saturday afternoon.

Kellie has family back in South Carolina, so she's going to be OK. Martha and I praise God for bringing her to us. It gave us a chance to minister the love of Jesus Christ to her. While I left the bus station to go get Kellie some food (she hadn't eaten in about two days), Martha listened and talked to her. My precious wife just poured the love of Jesus into that young lady, who was only 22 years old. She looked like she was 18.

Kellie was so thankful for the help, and we stayed there with her until she got on the bus. We didn't want to buy her a ticket and leave. We didn't want her to feel abandoned again.

We will probably never see Kellie again. That's the case with all of the transient homeless people and those abandoned like Kellie. But, for that short time, we have the opportunity to show them and tell them about the love of Jesus Christ. Then we send them on their way. But they will remember the words and the acts of love. They will know there is a God in Heaven who loves them.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:6, "I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow." That's what God expects all Christians to do. We must plant the seed of God's love into people, and water it with His Word and more love. We can't save them. Only God can. If we do what we are suppose to, God's Word will not return void. That seed of God's love will grow, and sooner or later, a harvest will be reaped.

So pray for all of those like Kellie and all of the transient homeless people we meet. Pray that the seeds will fall upon good soil, and that the Holy Spirit will bring the words and the acts of love back to their remembrance. They are precious people. They just need to know that someone loves and cares for them. That hope of God's love is all they need to pull them out of their situations.

No work day Saturday

We will not be having a work day this Saturday. Martha and I are trying to get over sickness, and we have a wedding to go to Saturday afternoon.

Don't forget about our charity auction on April 17 at 10 a.m. at the Love In Action Ministry Center. The auction is to help raise money for the Ministry Center's building fund. We will have lots of fun, food and fellowship. There will be great items for sale, including jewelry, glassware, antiques, furniture and more. Come be blessed and bless others. Auctioneer Col. Jerry Chief Eddings AL# 5079 will conduct the auction. If you would like to donate items for the auction, or for more information, call Jerry at 334-791-5296 or Mike Shroades at 334-389-0905.

The Love In Action Ministry Center is located at 1140 Montgomery Hwy., Dothan, next to the Piggly Wiggly. The money raised will help us expand the ministry center by adding another restroom, two showers, a laundry room, a full commercial kitchen, a new floor and more space in the worship area, A/C and heat, and other needed improvements.

Tears and smiles for the homeless

Two homeless men, Richard and George, enjoy a spaghetti dinner at the Love In Action Ministry Center.

A friend met two homeless men in Dothan, Ala., Monday night. She told them to go to the Love In Action Ministry Center the next night for Celebrate Recovery. There, they could get a good meal and pick up some supplies to help them.

My friend, Emily, is the director of our Celebrate Recovery. She knew these men would experience the love of Christ and receive the help they needed at the LIA Ministry Center.

They came and they enjoyed the night. They couldn't get enough of Diana's spaghetti with meatballs. They enjoyed the music and the preaching too. And, we were able to help them with some supplies.

They are transient homeless men from Spokane, Wash., and they are trying to get back home, and we are trying to help them get back home. One of them, Richard, is experiencing some health problems and he said he has a doctor in Spokane. The other one, George, is worried about his friend.

They spent the night in the LIA bus, which isn't up and running yet. But, it was a good place for them to get out of the cool night air. The temps were in the mid 40s, and that's cold, especially when considering most of us sleep in houses with our heat and cooling units set between 65-70 and higher.

I told them we would work on getting money for their bus tickets, and if they would come back tonight I should have a better idea on what we can do. We prayed before we left last night, and it brought Richard to tears. He said he knows God is on his side and will take care of him. He's worried, but at the same time he is trusting God to take care of him.

We did everything we could do for them, but it still hurts to see people living that way. I know most of the time we make the beds we sleep in so to speak. But so many of the homeless, especially those like Richard and George who have been homeless for years, they constantly get beaten down by society. If a person is told enough that he or she is a loser and a nobody, they start to believe it. In fact, during an outreach at a skidrow hotel in Los Angeles about seven years ago, we saw a young woman with the word "Nobody" tattooed on the back of her neck. That's who she thought she was, a nobody.

After last night, Richard and George know there are some people in Dothan, Ala., who care about them, and they saw God's love in action last night. They will again tonight. That's what happens at the LIA Ministry Center. Every volunteer hugs and genuinely shows they care and love every person who walks through the doors. People always say they feel loved there, and that's what we want to happen. God is love, so we should reflect our Heavenly Father in our lives.

After we left Richard and George sitting outside of the bus last night, Martha and I went to a homeless camp where three men live. We took them a large amount of spaghetti, salad and bread. Diana is a wonderful woman who cooks every week for Celebrate Recovery. She loves serving the men and women who attend. And, she is an incredible cook with a heart as big as the size of the meals she prepares every week. We have 80-plus people attend each week.

We had a lot of spaghetti noodles left last night, but no more sauce. She said if I could go next door to the Piggly Wiggly and buy a couple of bottles of sauce, she would prepare the rest of the spaghetti for our homeless friends. She did, and they were so thankful. It was 10:15 p.m. before we made it to their camp, but that was fine with them. When you don't know where your next meal is coming from, you are thankful to receive food any time during the day or night.

It's hard not to cry after loving on the homeless. I don't fight back the tears, and neither does Martha. Our hearts go out to them, and we thank God for giving us a ministry that helps them. And, we thank God for all of the volunteers with the same kind of heart for the homeless and poor, the broken and the hurting.

We often shed tears, but we also smile. The smiles come when we see the homeless accept God's love. When that sparkle of hope twinkles in their eyes. The hope that there is a God who loves them, and there really are people who care what happens to them.