The first 10 months of 2023 have been truly amazing. The Gospel has been shared in Tyler, Dallas, and Austin, seeing over 90 people make Jesus Christ their Savior and Lord of their life. We have been able to assist 11 people in getting into permanent housing in Tyler and 2 in Dallas. We’ve assisted with food, clothing and medical care and getting people into recovery facilities.
The primary mission of this ministry is sharing the Gospel with people in the anticipation that they accept Christ as their Savior and have the hope of eternal life. This is often best accomplished by living Jesus out loud. Demonstrating Jesus’ love through not only spiritual needs, but physical needs. It’s so much easier for the non-believers to become believers if they truly understand that they are loved, cared about and are as important as anyone else. Consequently, taking care of people’s physical needs is often “the way in” to sharing salvation and beginning that relationship with Christ.
Over the next 2 months most of us will be spending time with family and friends, eating wonderful food and exchanging gifts. Sadly, there are way too many who will not experience the happiness and frivolity that we will. Depression and anxiety are rampant this time of year for the homeless and working poor.
For our 4th year in a row, we will have our Holiday Ministry. At Thanksgiving we will provide a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings and at Christmas we will provide a complete ham dinner along with gifts and certain necessities for the children and adults.
As of today, we have 9 families totaling 13 adults and 18 children. I’m certain that this number will only increase as it did last year with a total of 17 families. This year our budget is $7500 to cover both meals ($140/family/meal), 2 gifts for each child and 1 gift for each adult as well as household necessities (laundry detergent, body wash, deodorant, etc.)
Ministry takes 2 things—money and prayer. Day-to-day operations and overhead must be met along with the many dollars that go out in direct assistance to those in need, but as important as financial resources are, nothing is as important as prayer.
If you are so able, would you consider supporting this Holiday Ministry with a financial donation? Regardless of whether you can support this ministry financially, please keep this ministry and me personally in your prayers.
It is my prayer that you have wonderful times in this upcoming season with family and friends and that none of us misses the opportunity that will surely arise where we can share the Gospel and change for eternity the trajectory of someone’s life.