01-01-08

FEED MY LAMBS

(John 21:15)  So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

LAST YEAR: 249 PERSONS SAVED; 360,000 MEALS; PLUS PLUS PLUS…

God bless you dear brothers and sisters. Our Rescue Mission has enjoyed an absolutely fantastic year 2007. TWO HUNDRED FORTY NINE men, women and young children received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and have quietly embarked upon “a changed lifestyle,” a journey to the stars. Praise God! Please allow me to relate some of the other highlights of 2007. First, we have happily begun to minister, with an abundance of both food and the Word of God, to a new Outreach located in mid Pinellas County called Pinellas Hope, which is a vastly upgraded “tent city.” Pinellas Hope is a pilot program, purposed for the rehabilitation of homeless persons that is financially supported jointly by Pinellas County and Catholic Charities. It is administered by Catholic Charities and organized to provide rehabilitative services to homeless persons that are essential for their re-entry back into society during the cold winter months from December 1, 2007 through April 28, 2008. One popular service that Pinellas Hope offers is to provide access to permanent housing for those who seek it and qualify, thereby getting those homeless persons off the streets and inserted into a self-supporting mode. The Pinellas Hope program has a fixed limited duration - at this point, however, that duration circumstance may well change as we proceed through the scheduled program and perhaps acquire additional funding sources and/or ministering opportunities.

Pinellas Hope is currently designed to temporarily lodge a maximum of 250 adult men and women, and is set up very much like a KOA campground, without the pool of course J, consisting of 250 new two man tents on 10 acres of newly cleared but nicely wooded property. Electricity was installed, and several new aluminum trailers dedicated to bathroom and shower facilities were trucked in and plumbed to city water and sewage. The kitchen is a new double-wide dedicated trailer, and there is another new double-wide trailer containing washers/dryers, Internet computer access for job searches, and clothing storage. Two much larger white tents with seating capacities of approximately 150 persons each containing outdoor plastic chairs and tables were erected near the kitchen for dining, meetings, counseling, classes, relaxation, and general purposes. It’s a great place.

Our Rescue Mission has volunteered to provide and serve 250 hot cooked meals (at an estimated cost of $500 – their estimate) to the residents of Pinellas Hope every Saturday from 5-6:00pm, and immediately thereafter to lead an evangelical Bible Study, and you are invited to join us. Please call me to schedule a tour of Pinellas Hope and/or for more details. Additionally, our staff and volunteers also transport 200 bag lunch meals (consisting of two sandwiches, something sweet, and some fruit as available) to Pinellas Hope every Monday through Friday morning around 6:00am (1,000 bag lunches per week at an estimated cost of $500). In total, our Rescue Mission is donating about $1,000 in food every week to Pinellas Hope, and our long-term commitment to help them is fairly simple: we shall continue until we run out. J  Thank you Lord.

All the latter is accomplished in addition to our other services of providing another 4,000 bag lunch meals monthly to eleven day-labor businesses, and approximately 1,500 in-house snack/buffet meals to our homeless patrons every month. 6,945 Pinellas County families are registered with us to receive a free box of groceries. Plus we give away every month approximately 20,000 meal equivalencies in bulk foods to 141 other needy nonprofit organizations for distribution to their own patrons. In total, our Rescue Mission, with your most gracious help, provides over 30,000 meals or meal equivalencies EVERY MONTH to poor and needy marginally domiciled families and the homeless folks of Pinellas County.

The average yearly dollar donation income of this entire Rescue Mission, for which we are truly thankful, is around $125,000. As good stewards of God’s provision, our staff and Board of Directors gratefully employ these funds to cover the aforementioned programs and all the myriad other activities including about 20 in-house service programs that we are involved in daily with families and homeless persons. Come on down to our Rescue Mission and see. We are very busy, and WE COULD NOT DO THIS WITHOUT YOU. Dear brothers and sisters, on behalf of our volunteers, staff, and Board of Directors, we sincerely thank you for the mighty and wonderful flow of your loving prayers and financial donations. Keep the flow coming, and we shall joyfully keep on laboring; increase the flow, and we shall joyfully increase our labors. God bless you.     

Current Board of Directors: Mr. John de Vries, Pastor Daniel Huntington, Pastor/Rev. Lionel Cabral, Mr. John Jaycox, Mr. Troy Bowman, Bro. Myrl Allinder, Rev. George Bolden.

Sincerely,

Rev. Lionel 

(John 21:17)  He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonah, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.