At this present time we are supporting this mission every month. I have personally done locksmith work there, been giving to this work for a couple of years, and been to this mission in Augusta, Georgia. My girls have sung there and my dad and nephew preaches there. I know the director who started the mission, Brother Travis Sharpe and his family. I cannot say enough about them or the work they are doing for our Saviour Jesus Christ. Brother Travis was also on my ordination board when I was ordained to preach. The main thing they are doing at the mission is seeing people come to know Jesus Christ as their Saviour. I am good friends with several of the men and vouch for the work that God has and is doing in their lives.
I’ll start with 2 very short stories: (The good news first) First I was really blessed last Friday when I went down to Wendy’s on Walton Way for lunch. I was a little downhearted because I was REALLY hungry this particular day and had not been paid yet (our missionary support check was not in yet). As I waited in line (with $3.00) I realized my only hope was the dollar menu! I planned out a $.99 chicken sandwich, small salad and water. I know this is more than many people had that day but when you keep looking at all of those meal deal signs you get even hungrier! As I stepped up to get my order a lady called my name from behind the counter. She had a great big smile and appeared very happy to be at work. She said that she wanted me to tell my mother hello and that she loves her and appreciates all that mom and the Mission did for her. Her name is Adrian Wright and she was one of the women who were in need if shelter and had spent several nights in our women and Children’s Shelter. (My mom is the director over that ministry.) We talked briefly and I left with my food. Before I could get to the door to leave, I began to cry. I prayed and told the Lord that I was sorry for my bad attitude about the limited lunch. I then realized that if I can sacrifice a little by working at the Mission and not having as much as I sometimes would like to have, well, it is worth it. I have told the Lord many times that I will gladly take less so that others can be helped and bettered.
Second, we had a special guest at the Mission chapel service on Tuesday night. His name was Eric Watson and he spent a few days in our Men’s Shelter last year. He has become involved in a church here in town and is really excited about the Lord working in his life. Eric came to give his testimony. His wife was with him. What a blessing it was to hear him give glory to God for saving his life. He told all of the men to surrender their life to the Lord and to keep their head’s up! I will now be very transparent and say that in order to see results like these it takes a lot of money.
Summer is here, school is out and donations are down. We are doing more for more people than ever before and we simply need help. I will list some of our challenges and needs below. In the last 60 days we have been forced to borrow $8500.00 from our savings account just to pay the bills. Today we have checking account balance of $1188.04 and there is $2687.64 worth of bills due immediately. Our payroll each week is just under $1200.00 Our power bill for May is $2172.00 Natural gas bill is $284.48 The water bill is $586.83 As you can see, it simply cost money to care for over 60 homeless people every single night of the year. You can help by giving, praying for us and spreading the word to your families and friends that there is a great Mission helping many people that needs help.
Many people continue to ask why we have not opened the Women & Children’s Shelter every night of the week yet. The answer is two fold: First, we simply are not getting very many ladies coming forward to volunteer, (the ones that are volunteering are doing a great job) and secondly we have a budget deficit of about $ 76975.00. (Annually). The attachment to this email lays out the details of needed income for the Women & Children’s Shelter. AC materials needed One other need that is a little less mind boggling……Another one of our AC units needs to be replaced. Thankfully, we have had a unit donated an a little money also. We must install all new duct work to make this new unit work right. (We are downsizing from 2 units to 1 unit in this part of the building.) We need about $1200.00 for the duct and other materials. We have free installation available to us so we will get out real cheap and save in the long run. A new website has been developed for us and is up and running now.
We have had a great week here at the Mission with several good chapel services and some great meals as well. This week meals were brought to us by Just for Today Men’s group, Phyllis Warren & Cornelia Reynolds, and Crothall Outreach. Last week One Accord Baptist Church and Cannon Baptist Church brought meals for us. Thank you to everyone who was involved in these meals.
The kitchen folks have given me a list of needs; we are out of most of these things. Your help is appreciated.
Sugar
Oatmeal
Cereal
Cooking oil
Flour
extra large trash bags
We are planning a BBQ cook-off and southern gospel sing for the first Saturday in October. If you would like to help put this event together we could use a little help so just let us know.
We were able to purchase the DVD duplicator we needed and preaching CD’s are now available for purchase. Of course the proceeds go to the Mission. Here are a few of the sermons that are available from Travis Sharpe:
Waste or Worship
What Jesus is to Me
How to Obtain a Vision
Faithful Till the Finish
History of How Garden City Rescue Mission Came to Be
Keep on the Firing Line
Truth for the Troubled Heart
Wait Just a Minute
Blessings for the Burdened
Three sermon series entitled “Life’s Building Blocks”
Five sermon series entitled “Chapel Favorites”
Simply call or email us if you are interested in any of these.
Also..
One more mother was able to move out of the Women and Children’s Shelter last week!!! I had a great time preaching last night at Sonrise Baptist Church in Lugoff, SC. They gave a great love offering to the Mission and we are grateful for that.
Garden City Rescue Mission Short Update April 24, 2008
Things are going well here at the Mission this week. We had a great weekend with Piedmont Baptist Church from Kannapolis, NC. A group of 22 men came down and installed 20 new windows in our Mission building. You talk about a huge blessing! We now have all functioning, energy efficient windows throughout the entire building. This church family paid for the windows and everything that was necessary to install them. We owe them a bug thank you!
To the left are a couple of the new windows. To the right, the church group is hard at work!
Special thanks this week also go to:
A friend who donated money for one of the three security lights needed.
We have a supporter who brought a lot of sausage for our breakfast last week.
Cartridge World donated several inkjet cartridges for our printers.
Several meals were provided by various groups.
Fish Fry is Coming Up!
Saturday May, 3rd
12:00 PM
VBC Tabernacle on Orange St. in Clearwater
We need to have a strong showing of support for the fish fry. I hope you will attend and bring a friend or the family. We are asking everyone to give their best offering at this event to help the Mission to forge forward in the days ahead.
Garden City Rescue Mission Update- April 16th 2008.
This morning I stopped by the Huddle House at 13th and Greene in downtown Augusta to have some coffee and get in my Bible reading. After a little while, I looked out the window and noticed a work truck pull up. It was a Waters Electric Co. truck and out stepped a gentleman who looked very familiar to me. The man came inside, sat down and ordered his breakfast. As soon as he saw me he smiled and came over asking if I remembered him. Come to find out, his name was Mike and he is a former guest of the Garden City Rescue Mission. He spent 92 nights here with us from August 2006-July 2007.
Today Mike was upbeat, positive and in good spirits. He was thankful for all the help we gave him during the year of his life that he battled an addiction with prescription drugs and homelessness. Mike is a licensed electrician and was able to move out of the Mission last year when he secured his job. Mike said he has been clean for a year now and that the Lord had helped him. Now that was a great way for me to start off my day!!!
Fish Fry is Coming Up!
Saturday May, 3rd
12:00 PM
VBC Tabernacle on Orange St. in Clearwater
Women and Children’s Shelter Need Volunteers
Please help us pray that the Lord would send us the volunteers we need for this shelter. Some of our volunteers have made other commitments now and we are very low on help. Actually, we could use two or three full time employees (if finances permitted) right now, every day. Just last week we had a mother with a four day old baby who needed shelter on Friday. We could not help her because we are not able to be open on the weekends as of yet.
Ladies are needed to help in the following ways:
During check in hours which are 4pm-6pm Monday-Thursday
Morning help is needed with breakfast and clean up 5am-9am Monday-Friday
Daytime help is needed Monday-Friday doing light cleaning, office work and helping walk-up guests
Nursery help is needed from 6:30pm-8pm many evenings each week
Our biggest need is an overnight clerk to spend the night some. For over a year now my mother (Suzie Greene) has spent every night here at the Mission. She also is in charge of everything else so you can imagine just how tiring this must be for her. Some nights she gets a little sleep and some nights she does not. Please pray for help!!!
Yesterday I had a wonderful visit with a former resident of the Mission. Jerry Anderson stopped by to say hello and give his thanks for the Rescue Mission ministry. Jerry spent 108 nights here at the Mission with his last night being Nov. 6th, 2007. Surprisingly, Jerry re-married his ex-wife in November and his entire family is back together again. He has two teenage children who are thrilled to have “dad” back into their lives. Jerry has been attending church at Victory each week and I was told by an usher that he has been giving in the offerings regularly. He asked me if he could have some time in one of our Mission chapel services to give his testimony so that will be soon. Jerry works at Southern Roofing, has his own truck (that he is very proud of) and a smile no one can erase. He credits the Lord with everything and his only regret is that he didn’t follow God sooner. Jerry is 37 years old.
Wedding at the Mission Saturday…
Saturday at the eleven in the morning I will perform a marriage ceremony for two guests of the Mission. Jennifer and Junior have two children and have been together for four years now. They have both received Christ as their Savior and were convicted by the Lord to make their relationship right in His eyes. Jennifer is in our Women and Children’s Shelter and Junior has secured an apartment just this week so they will be married and move into their new home together on Saturday. Normally I don’t do weddings but I am glad to help this couple honor God by doing so.
Church work group coming to Mission…
We are looking forward to having a men’s group from Piedmont Baptist Church in Kannapolis, NC in a few weeks. This group has ordered and paid for new windows for the entire Mission!!! They will be here on April 17-19 to install them. What a true gift this is going to be. These men will pay for their own motels and food during that time. They are true givers.
Fish Fry coming up…
Don’t forget to mark your calendar for our fund-raising fish fry on May 3rd.
Traveling this weekend…
I will be traveling to Blackshear, GA this weekend to preach in Sunday services there. Please be in prayer for us.
Our needs are outgrowing our ability to keep up….Here is an updated list of special needs and everyday needs….
Special needs:
1. Three new security lights (we need the good ones that are about $100.00 each)
2. A new door needs to be installed in the Women and Children’s Shelter (approximate cost of $500 for everything needed)
3. We need someone who can cut down some rather large trees in the back of the Mission building.
4. About $6000.00 more is needed for the new walk-in freezer.
5. We have some exterior painting needs. A good painter and about four or five gallons of paint would be a blessing.
6. Our fax machine and copier needs replacing.
7. We are starting to make preaching CD’s to take when I go to churches so we need a CD Duplicator.
8. We need some help preparing for the freezer to be installed out back.
We have some trees that must be cut down, a deck that must be moved and we will need
to pour a concrete slab for it to sit on. If you can help or know someone who can please call us.
We have a former female resident who moved out last year and has held a steady job. Her car died last week and she was told it was no use to attempt to fix it. She needs transportation for her job.
Everyday needs:
1. The Children’s Shelter still needs apple juice.
It has been a wonderful summer here at the Mission! We have launched two new ministries that help men and women overcome homelessness. We have also completed a major project and have helped dozens of men and women move out on their own. Some of these are listed below, thank you for your love and support of Garden City Rescue Mission.
New ministries are breaking the cycle of homelessness!
We are now holding GED classes right here at the Mission. We are thankful that Augusta Technical College has set up an off campus site for teaching GED classes for days a week. There has been a good response from the men and women with about then students right now.
We have also started a new intake and referral ministry. Everyone who comes to the Mission will sit down with a director who will obtain a complete overveiw of their situation and make quality referrals based upon their assessment. This has really paid off as many people simply need to know where to go next.
Garden City Rescue Mission gets a brand new roof!
What a blessing it is to be dry and have no leaks. We are very grateful for the many generous gifts that made our new roof possible. Over $22,000 was given toward this project which is now complete. These are some pictures of the work in process.
Special Needs
Special Needs
1. We have a great need right now for some overnight help. This would include light duty security work watching the Mission during the late night and early morning hours. A great position for a retired person! Volunteers in this position must provide a background check and be male.
2. Our roof is worn thin and desperately needs replacing. Please help us pray about this. We are accepting donations to save up for the replacement. (posted 1/15/07)
3. We need to build another bathroom in the Women and Children's Shelter. This may cost about $2,000.00 to complete. (posted 6/18/07)
4. We need to build a baggage room in the Women and Children's Shelter. This will cost about $800.00
Needs that have recently been met:
4/11/07 An individual purchased 35 metal bunk beds for us. This was a huge blessing.
4/12/07 A local flooring business donated all of the tile that was needed to re-floor the dormortory, hallway and the common area for the men's shelter! We thank the Lord for this good business.
Every Day Needs
Laundry Detergent***
Bleach
Lysol
Bar soap
Sugar
Coffee
Plastic forks and spoons
Styrofoam plates & cups ***
*** indicates that we are very low on this product.
Remaining Needs for the Women and Children' facility
Items on this list can be dropped by the mission at any time on any day. The address is 828 Fenwick St. If you have a question about needed items you can call the mission office at 706-724-6960.
WOMEN & CHILDREN
Women & Children’s Shelter News
Contact Suzie Greene at 706-724-6960 for information
A Great Success Story
There was a young lady (31 years old) who stayed with us for 15 days in our women’s shelter. Octavia was very bad into drugs and the street life. Not long after she began staying with us, she received Christ as her Saviour and was baptized at our church. It was then that Octavia said she really felt the urge to change her life. She was able to move to Thomson, GA to live with her mother and get off of the streets. She called here the other day very excited because she had landed what she called a “real job.” Octavia calls almost every day just to say hello and let us know she is alright.
Families Get Re-established
In the last two months we have had two ladies and their children to move out into apartments on their own. These two ladies and their children stayed with us for seven weeks. Michelle had four children and Tamara had one child. The ladies who work here have worked hard to help the women get re-established in life. In the future we want to offer classes that will train these women for meaningful employment.
Our Progress and Needs
We are making great progress in the Women and Children’s Shelter. We are now open Monday - Thursday every week. We will start next week adding an additional bathroom, a baggage room and dividing one of the family rooms. There is still a great need for help. We have one more staff position that needs to be filled immediately. This is a paid position and consists of the overnight shift from 9pm until 9am two nights per week. If you are interested in this position you can call Suzie at 706-724-6960.
As with the men’s division, the ladies need plastic plates, cups, forks and so on. Breakfast items for the children are always a big need as well. The kitchen still needs to be equipped with a stainless steel table for food preparation and there is a need for a small chest freezer. Thank you for your support and prayers as we strive to serve the Lord!
Jesus said…suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not…
THANKSGIVING
These pictures are from this years Thanksgiving.
Brother Travis Receives a Letter from a Teenager.
Brother Travis, Hey, This is Hannah Gurley! You may remember but I was in the cantata we performed at the homeless shelter. I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you how my visit to the homeless shelter affected me. I must admit I was extremely nervous to visit the shelter and I had no clue what to expect. I know it might sound bad, but I was a little scared to visit. I tried hard to get out of coming down there, but God was really dealing with me to go. But the reason I am sending you this email is because I was completely touched by my visit.
I am someone who has been blessed with a lot of worldly possessions. But after Friday night I will never think the same way about my life. While the choir was singing their songs the men were crying and raising their hands in praise. It hit me hard that these men who have absolutley no worldly possessions can raise their hands and sing praises to the the Lord! But myslef and others who have everything we need or want are scared to worship like we should. I know that these men probably don't realize that they could affect someones life, but they changed mine in a mighty way! I was blessed to be able to come and visit you and the other men at the shelter. I know now that this was why God made me come. Starting today, I am going to start giving thanks to God everyday for the good and bad things that come my way! My heart was touched by these men and their faithfulness and thankfulness to God! I am thankful to you and your faithfulness to the Lord also!
I just wanted to take a minute to thank you, your family, the staff, and the men for showing me something in my life that really needs to change. Yall will all be in my prayers!
It's the coldest night of the season so far and the frigid temperatures are forcing many who live on Augusta's streets to find a warm place to stay.
The men here at Garden City Rescue Mission Homeless shelter say they are feeling very fortunate.
“It's totally a blessing. You don't have to worry about freezing to death and not going hungry,” said Charlie Brown, staying at shelter.
They lined up as early as 3 o'clock Monday afternoon after hearing temperatures would dip into the 20's tonight.
“Out on the street you can't put on enough clothes, can't find adequate shelter in abandoned houses,” said Douglas Holland, staying in shelter.
Thanks to the faith-based shelter, more than 50 men have a warm place to sleep, fresh change of clothes, meals, prayer and bible study.
“It's hard work but it's very rewarding and to be able to see someone that you've helped to be able to get back on their feet to makes it all worth while,” said Scott Simet, Assistant Director.
Something that Lisa Holmes and these women are grateful for; 50 of them and several children will get a good night's rest at the mission's women's shelter. A warm, safe place instead the streets.
“If you're lucky you can sleep in the park and not be disturbed but everyone once in while a friend may let you stay with them but it can get rough and very cold,” said Lisa Holmes, staying in women’s shelter.
But because of the generosity of others, that's something these men and women don't have to worry about for now.
Mission workers say they expect be filled to capacity as the cooler temperatures continue.
Newsletter-September 2007
Special Needs
THANKSGIVING
