Today @ Love INC
Lives are truly being changed
Thu, Apr 10 2008
We were all quite dazzled by the Love INC in Grand Rapids. Tears welled up in my eyes as I was touring the Loving Help (12-18 month relational program) weekly gathering. It was one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen. The church with one of the largest buldings in the city hosts it. Many churches (over 90%of the local churches are Love INC participants) contribute to what starts out as an 8 week budget counseling class where everyone is paired with a mentor who establishes a very high accountability relationship. The person or couple continue to meet with that mentor when they finish the class (each week has one on one time and group time) and then have the option to take other classes - parenting, marriage, more finance, repairs, cooking, Bible study, resume writing/job search, life skills, etc. All the while there is a wonderful children's program going on which includes being fed dinner.
!>1207843073.jpeg!The backdrop of all is: God loves you - it's very nonjudgmental about how you got where you are and very forward focused. They invite all the Love INC clients to participate and urge in particular anyone who has asked for help more than once to join the Loving Help program. They provide transportation to those who need it and high incentive - a voucher for a week's worth of groceries at one of their food pantries, $10 gasoline vouchers from participating service stattions, oil change and hair cut vouchers again from participating businesses. Each week they give away something - the night we were there it was hats, gloves and mittens which was perfect because they saw their first snow that day. Receiving the incentive items helps give hope and get the clients out of debt particularly as the participants couple the resources they are given with guidance from the mentor. I believe in the initial phase the client actually turns over their credit cards/check book to the mentor.
Initially the people come for the rewards but then get hooked on the love and relationships. I saw no shame on anyone's faces but lots of joy. In one classroom there was a retired school superintendent who was working with a very pregnant 20ish looking gal who jumped up when we came in and told us how much she loved coming every week. We met a pastor from a church other than the host church who said the one night of the week he couldn't sleep was after he participated in Loving Help because it was so thrilling to see the life changes and sense he was doing effective work.
The whole children's program - which includes several components including one on one reading to kids was done by a church other than the host church. We saw a room with a row of high chairs and a youth group feeding the kids. Everyone was laughing! We were told they had to set an ending time of 12-18 months because clients never wanted to stop coming. Great effort is made to have participants connected to a church by the end of the program so that they will continue to have a community to surround them.
We also toured the Love INC storehouses and resale store. It appears that Love INC acts as a food bank for Grand Rapids in some ways - they get food from Second Harvest and distribute it to several church food pantries. They also give away food to some ministries that can't afford to pay the 18 cents/pound that is charged to buy the food. In addition to food, they have a furniture ministry of major proportions. It includes appliance, furniture, floral arrangement, computer and bike repair so that they can use the many damaged items that are given to them. The appliances that are beyond repair (one in four they receive) are sold for scrap metal or somehow recycled. They get so many donations that they can't find enough people to give them to - so they opened the re-sale store which is incredibly beautiful, immaculately clean and looks very little like a thrift store. Last year they made a $400,000 profit from the resale store.
Some of their smaller programs include providing bags of clothing essentials and hygiene/comfort items to newly placed foster kids, backpacks of needed items for kids going to camp, quilts and lap blankets to the elderly, etc. Some churches concentrate on filling just one gap need such as providing linens or diapers. Others pool together to create some of the larger programs.
Some of what they do clearly doesn't fit with our community gaps/needs but it gave us a lot of great ideas and really inspired us.
During our training program, we heard about another budget mentoring program ran by the Idaho Love, INC. The statistics bear repeating here because they show the impact this kind of program can have on a group of people. The program included 134 adults with an average monthly income of $2,000.
After a year, 94% said their marriages were strengthened, 32% had been considering bankruptcy at the beginning of the class and that was averted, 60% repored improved employment.
At the beginning of the class, the combined class had $300,000 in debt and 144 credit cards. At the end of 12 months they had reduced that to 51 credit cards and $91,000 in debt. At the beginning on 29 were tithers, at the end 57 were tithing to their church. At the beginning 50 were receiving public assistance and at the end only 20 were.
At the beginning the class had a combined total of $4,900 in savings but by the end of the class the combined total in savings was $73,000.
Lives are truly being changed by the programs in Idaho and Michigan. The same can happen here when the body of Christ works together to make it a reality.
Loving Helps, Relational Ministry
By JANE WILLIAMS Vice President of the Board
Published Winter, 2008
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