ministry center

so i want to talk about the ministry center more in detail...

its pretty much like a food pantry and they have a thrift store down the road as well. Wednesdays they distribute the food that gets sorted and packaged throughout the first days in the week. Wednesday is the day people can come and pick the aid up. however BMC is SO much more than the food.

Bill Thomas, the man that started it, is really a phenomenal guy. He lives in waynesville, regular customer and dear friend of Beaver...they meet, i think, almost every morning for coffee at the market place and share their lives with one another. anyway he has had many jobs in his life...but has finally found his purpose i guess you could say.

he has really transformed lives. just a few for example...our master Chef who cooks on the weekends, Chris (his story soon to come- i have asked him and a few others that work at the MP to write their stories so i can post them- good for them, and good for you to see how Much Ministries is changing lives). Then there is a woman that just read your story to me from her notebook last week...she literally was workin the street, and bill pursued her and loved on her until she got out of her situation. now she isn't working the streets and is going to get her story/journal published...still struggling here and there, but doing well...she is such a sweet heart. i was so honored that she felt comfortable to share her life with me.

I'm so glad Beaver asked me to go there on Wednesdays because its really wonderful. sometimes its a little out of my comfort zone not because of the area or the people, but because i am not one to sit down with someone and ask them if they know Jesus or not within minutes of meeting them. i am more of the love you...build a relationship...get to know you and then let you ask me why i love Jesus so much. but God is stretching me in that and i am learning how to present it in a way that is very comfortable for me and others...i tell them up front how i feel about it...

see because what happens is that if its someones first time getting aid from the ministry center they have to fill paper work out and we also sit down with them and present the gospel. i have been going for about a month now and last Wednesday was the first time i sat down with someone by myself.

i didn't want to do it..as i would rather just hug them, get them their food and say...have a blessed day mam, but Bill encouraged and i went. i was really honest. i asked if i could ask her some spiritual questions...she kinda laughed a little and said yes...i then proceeded to tell her how i would much rather get to know her first and then she could ask me the questions...but that we were doing this ministry because we loved Jesus and just wanted her to know that. i asked her to share some of her story with me and it was beautiful.

an alcoholic, but going on 3 years of sobriety, but didn't have a job and was struggling to make ends meat for her and her daughter. she had just had surgery and was going to start school again, what a courageous woman. she already knew the Lord and we had a wonderful time of prayer together. i think i was more blessed by her than she was by me, but that is usually the case. I've learned to expected that in my years of serving those in Haiti and in the urban core of America. now i am learning first hand that the same stuff exists in rural America. I've always know, but now I'm amidst it.

Bill often sends people to Beaver & Kathy at the MP to get out of situations that are not healthy where they are coming from. therefore Much Ministries and the ministry center (BMC) have a wonderful partnership centered by Gods grace and provision.

isn't it amazing...i'm so blessed to be here...to be a part of it...

thanks to all you who love and support my deep desire to be a missionary to this world...who knows maybe the next place will be Uganda... which brings me to my next post...