Can a housing development for the homeless work?

This is one of the tiny homes in the Mobile Loaves & Fishes' Community First! Village.

We saw a lot of Grace & Mercy and Goodness in Austin, Texas, at Mobile Loaves
& Fishes' Community First! Village.

Learn, gain valuable insight, plan, pray. Those were our main goals in Austin, Texas this past week.

Thanks to a grant given to the Southeast Alabama Coalition of the Homeless, I was honored to travel to Austin with The Harbor Executive Director Kody Kirchhoff, The Ark Executive Director Jeff Peacock, Genesis Housing Executive Director David Jamison, and Dothan Mayor Mark Saliba.

We attended a symposium put on by Mobile Loaves & Fishes, which is a social outreach ministry that has been empowering communities into a lifestyle of service with the homeless since 1998. They do this in three different ways:

- Truck Ministry: provides food for the homeless in Austin seven nights a week.
- Community First! Village: A 51-acre master planned development that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for men and women coming out of chronic homelessness.
- Community Works: Provides micro-enterprise opportunities that enable residents of the Community First! Village to earn a dignified income, while also developing new skills and cultivating enduring relationships.

Our main reason for attending the symposium was to learn about the Community First! Village. Our ministries do excellent jobs of meeting many of the needs of the homeless in Dothan. Permanent housing is one major area we have not been able to accomplish as ministries and as a city. In Austin, we saw how they do it.

It's not as easy as copying and pasting, because one size does not fit all. However, we witnessed a true breakthrough in providing permanent housing for the homeless.

The homes are not just given to the homeless. They have to go through an application process and pay monthly for their homes. Those living in the Community First! Village pay for their homes through their disability checks, SSI checks, earned incomes or sponsorships.

Does everyone succeed in the Community First! Village? No. However, their success rate is an amazing 88 percent in the first four years of the village.

Mobile Loaves & Fishes believes the single greatest cause of homelessness is the "profound catastrophic loss of family." They also believe housing will never solve homelessness, but community will.

I can't argue with either of those statements. In most of the lives of the homeless I've ever met, they lost their family at some point. They don't have a support system through family as many of us do. That often leads to poor decisions that furthers the downward spiral.

They have a strong argument about community as well. When you live in true community you have so much support, encouragement and hope. When you live in community through Jesus Christ and how the early Christians did in the Book of Acts, then there will be true transformation and people can overcome anything through the power of God.

Can a community like this become a reality in Dothan? It sure can. It will take a lot of prayer, planning, work, and money. It won't just happen overnight. But, if the Body of Christ can truly come together with the support of our community it can happen.

What are the next steps? Stay tuned and keep us in your prayers.

The Community First! Village has an amphitheater where a Friday night movie is
shown every week. People from Austin and other areas come to attend this fun,
family night.

RV campers are also part of the Mobile Loaves & Fishes Community First! Village.

We need each other to reach the lost and hurting

Taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ and food to the streets of Dothan meets two
vital needs. Most importantly, the need for salvation through Jesus Christ alone.
Secondly, meeting the need for food as 1-in-6 people in Dothan are food insecure. 

It takes the Body of Christ to effectively reach people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and meet needs of the homeless and poor. Just one or two parts of the Body cannot accomplish this mission. It takes all of us doing our part.

Romans 12:4-5, explains that we are members of the Body of Christ, "For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another."

We read in Ephesians 4:15-16 that when we all do our part as members of the Body of Christ, the Body will grow: "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love."

We are able to reach more people when we all do our part and the Gospel spreads and God's Kingdom increases in number.

For example, last week we saw six people make decisions for Jesus. Hallelujah! This is why we do what we do at Love In Action. We also served close to 1,000 hot meals last week, as well as help close to 200 people through our food and hygiene pantries and clothes. Our homeless friends took showers and we washed their laundry.

All of the work meeting needs led to those six people making decisions for Jesus. None of those could have happened without our staff, volunteers, people who donate financially, people who donate items we use, and people praying throughout the week.

Our volunteers are amazing as they give of their time to show the love of Jesus and share the Gospel with those who come to Love In Action and as we take the Gospel and food to the streets. It's not easy, but they keep coming to serve, because they know they are fulfilling the call of God on their lives.

There are many others who deserve just as much credit and those are the people who support LIA financially. While you may not physically be able to be at LIA every day sharing the Gospel and helping people, your giving makes everything we do possible. Without finances, we cannot do what we do.

We have bills to pay just like a business. We have a mortgage payment, utility bills, insurance premiums, and payroll. We need to purchase fuel for our vehicles, which are used to transport our homeless friends to and from Bible study, Samaritan Clinic, other doctor appointments, social security office, food stamp office, and more, as well as pull our mobile kitchen around town. We purchase items to help meet needs of those we serve, such as tents, restock our food and hygiene pantries, office supplies and more.

Then there are the recent unexpected bills, such as two compressors going out in A/C units, a tire blowout coming back from a food bank run, an electrical disconnect that needed replacing, and someone throwing a brick through a window on our bus. Oh, I forgot about a clogged drain we couldn't take care of ourselves.

Your giving helps in all of these areas and more, and therefore makes it possible for us to share the Gospel with others, see them come to Jesus, and meet their physical needs. Thank you.

Those who donate items for our food and hygiene pantries, clothes, and more help us have the items we need to serve people without having to purchase the items ourselves, which saves on our budget. The food you donate keeps people from going hungry here in Dothan. When 1-in-6 are food insecure what a blessing it is to be able to help people who are struggling. The hygiene items help people who have to decide between paying for medicines and food or purchasing needed hygiene items.

Here is a link to a page on our website showing our ministry needs, https://loveinactionministries.com/dothan/ministry-needs.

Those who pray are bombarding Heaven with prayers for us and those we serve. God hears your prayers and we see Him answering them. We stand in amazement every week as we see firsthand those prayers for salvation, protection, and provision being answered.

You see, it takes all of us. Please continue doing your part. If you aren't involved in any of these areas, please join us. We need you. Those we serve and are trying to reach with the Gospel need you.

We are in real need of finances. The summer months are usually tough as people get out of their normal routine, which includes giving. Summer is also a time when our needs increase. The extreme heat greatly increases our utility bills, and children being out of school pushes the need for more food and serving more food even higher.

We actually started struggling with finances during the month of April, and the annual summer months decline has made this summer even tougher. God keeps coming through, and we praise Him for it. We are currently around $5,000 below our budgeted needs. Please help us catch up and get ahead.

You can mail your tax-deductible donations to: Love In Action, P.O. Box 85, Dothan, AL 36302 or donate securely online via PayPal through our website by clicking on this link, https://loveinactionministries.com/donate, and then clicking on the "Donate" button.

Thank you for giving. Thank you for volunteering. Thank you for donating items. Thank you for praying. 

Talking with and praying with people is such an important aspect of our ministry,
and baptizing new believers is a very exciting part of what we are blessed to do.

Wired evangelism team touched hundreds of lives

The Wired evangelism team serving with Love In Action were amazing young people.

If the youth attending Wired 2019 are any indication of how the generation will carry on the Gospel message, the Body of Christ has a bright future.

The Wired evangelism team serving at Love In Action last week was amazing. They were not shy about sharing Jesus with others and praying with pretty much everyone they came in contact with. They sat down and talked with the homeless in our coffee house. They ministered one-on-one with the homeless in suite 6 at LIA, which is where we talk with people one-on-one to share the Gospel and help them with physical needs, such as food, hygiene items, and clothing.

They prayed with our friends in homeless camps and parking lots of hotels. They knocked on doors in a community with mostly elderly residents to offer prayer and bagged lunches. Wherever we went, the youth were ready to minister.

Three decisions were made for Jesus last week, and the youth were part of helping to lead people to Jesus. We saw many acts of compassion, including one teen taking a lot of time with a deaf homeless person, who was visiting Love In Action for the first time. That personal attention made him feel welcome and loved. Nobody told that young man to do that. He was moved with compassion.

Another youth asked to do a prayer walk around one of the hotels we frequent with our mobile kitchen. She led the prayer walk and stopped at certain doors as she felt the Holy Spirit led her to pray specifically over the people in those rooms.

We even experienced a Love In Action and Wired first ... an impromptu wedding in the parking lot of the Beeline hotel. One of the youth brought his guitar and three others joined him singing praises to God in the parking lot. A couple heard the music and came out. They were amazed and loved it.

After talking with them for a while, I understood they loved Jesus with all of their hearts, and they had known each other for many years. Then they asked if I could marry them, because they want to live right in the eyes of God. I said sure. They asked if I could marry them at that moment. I turned around and said, "Hey, y'all. We're about to have a wedding."

Without missing a beat, the youth joined in and began playing music and singing for the wedding. One of the youth prayed over the happy couple. After I pronounced them husband and wife, the youth started singing another song.

The woman burst into tears and said, "That's our song," as she lovingly gazed into the eyes of her husband. Only the Holy Spirit could have done that, and He could because the youth were willing to flow with Him. It was awesome and so sweet.

Thank you Wired youth and team leaders for an awesome week. Y'all come back anytime.

Wired construction team rocks!

This group of young people filled this 20-yard dumpster to the rim at Love In Action.

Young people nowadays, all they do is play video games and sleep. They wouldn't know hard work if it hit them upside their heads. Aren't those the prevailing thoughts about teenagers?

Well, the group of young people we were blessed to spend last week with experienced very little sleep at Wired and definitely no video games were played.

Instead, they put in six long hours Monday-Friday at Love In Action working in the heat and humidity of our south Alabama summer. Before coming to LIA by 9 a.m., they were having Bible study, worship and prayer. Then after working all day, they had worship services each night, followed by more Bible studies. That's why it's called, "Wired tired."

The goal for last week was for the construction crew to demo two suites at Love In Action. Goal accomplished. They quickly demoed suite 1, and then spent four days clearing out suite 6, ripping out a kitchen, and removing flooring. All of the debris was tossed into a 20-yard dumpster. By Wednesday, it was almost filled to the top.

After finishing the work early on Friday, they moved downstairs to suite 4 to organize the food we had just brought in a week earlier from our food bank.

They worked non-stop until boarding the bus Friday afternoon. They did break for lunch and Bible study each day, two very important parts of each day.

The work they accomplished would have taken us a very long time to do. I seriously doubt we would have accomplished it by the end of this year.

Now, as the Lord provides, we will be able to renovate those two suites to make classrooms for discipleship classes, an area for larger meetings/gatherings, and a karate dojo. That's the part that caught our young friends' attention.

Our goal is to teach self defense for free to women who are homeless and live at the House of Ruth. Some of our volunteers want the training as well. Bro. Dan Levy is an 8th degree black belt and has taught self defense for decades. This well be a very unique ministry that could literally save some women's lives.

Thank you Wired youth and leaders. Y'all rock!

Thank you also to our long-time volunteer, Robert Pedrick, for leading the efforts and showing the youth what needs to be done. Robert was sure enough tired by the end of the week. He started working before the youth arrived and well after they left. For someone in his 70s, Robert doesn't let any grass grow under his feet. We love you, Robert.

Wired 2019 youth simply amazing

Wired Ministries evangelism team that was with LIA during Wired 2019.

Wired Ministries construction team that was with LIA during Wired 2019.

Any adults who worry about the next generation only needs to be involved with Wired Ministries to see the future of the church is bright.

Each year we have a group of youth who spend the week with us at Love In Action. This year we had two groups. One was a construction team and the other an evangelism team. Both groups were amazing.

The construction team worked hard in the summer heat to demo two suites for us. Their hard work sets us up to be able to start renovating those two suites, which will help us expand our ministries.

The evangelism team showed a lot of spiritual maturity as they ministered to and loved on the homeless and those living in poverty. Whether we were in our coffee house, at a homeless camp, or in a motel parking lot, these young people shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ through word and action.

Three people made decisions for Jesus and we experienced a first, an impromptu wedding in a motel parking lot. The youth served over 600 plates/bags of food, and prepared and gave out special bags of treats for children.

I will write more blogs about Wired 2019, and focus on each group in different blogs. I will also write a blog about the incredible impact of Wired Ministries on Love In Action.

It was the best Wired Week ever for us. I believe that shows the effectiveness of Wired. As the students attend Wired year after year, they are growing in Christ. It's not just Wired. There's a lot of great work being done by youth pastors and leaders throughout our community and region that is producing fruit. Add the amazing impact of Wired Ministries, and there is fruit that remains.

I've never felt better about the future of the Body of Christ in the Wiregrass than I do right now after an incredible week with about 30 amazing youth.