The Gano Mission Center staff was ecstatic when Pastor Chris Hall from Houston Northwest Church (HNW) called about a year ago to offer us the use of their shower/laundry disaster recovery trailer. They purchased it in response to Hurricane Harvey, but now they wanted to see it used when not deployed to a disaster site to help the homeless in Houston. As HNW prayed about who to approach as a potential partner Pastor Chris felt compelled to contact us. He had served as a volunteer about ten years ago at the Gano Mission Center and remembered the mission work we did. What is amazing is that, at the same time he called, we had already been responding to the Lord’s prompting to grow our homeless ministry.
The first step we took to expand our ministry services was to build an outdoor shower. Members of Woodridge Baptist Church collected funds to buy materials, and one of our faithful volunteers, Jim Hughes, constructed the shower enclosure. Juan Ayala, our Gano Area Missionary, did all the plumbing work to complete the job. Almost immediately after the shower was complete the call came in from Pastor Chris. We took it as a clear sign from the Lord that He was pleased with the direction we were going, and that He would continue to bless what we were going to do by sending more resources – like the use of a fully equipped trailer with three showers, four washers and four dryers! Adding the HNW trailer to the ministry was a match that only our Lord could orchestrate! When the trailer was delivered to MCH in July (delayed due to the Covid pandemic), we were ready to plan our first event.
With dreams of meeting more physical and spiritual needs of the homeless in the Near Northside, plans were started to hold our first “Bless the Homeless Day” on Saturday, Sept. 26th. Our goal was to provide a setting where our homeless friends could relax and experience the love of our amazing God! We knew that our staff wasn’t large enough to provide all the ministry the Lord was calling us to do, so He sent 16 volunteers from HNW. Together with our staff we were able to minister to 27 homeless people that day. They were blessed with the opportunity to have their clothes laundered while they ate a hot meal, picked out new clothes, took a refreshing shower, and had an enjoyable time of fellowship, along with offers for prayer and a Bible. Some of the volunteers even helped prepare bags of groceries for the upcoming weeks’ food distribution!
We are so grateful for churches and individuals reaching out and providing physical and spiritual resources for our under-resourced neighbors in the inner city of Houston. If you, your family or organization, your business or church would like to be involved in this ministry (donating men’s clothing, providing food, volunteering during these events, etc.), please email Cheryl Chadwick at cheryl@missioncenters.org. We look forward to partnering with you!
