TANYA EISERER / Abilene Reporter-NewsAbilenians on a mission to help
TANYA EISERER / Abilene Reporter-News
Keeping their eyes peeled, Mark Hewitt and Jim Sayre barrel around in a Suburban on a Sunday afternoon looking for homeless people.
"I believe God shows us where they're at," Hewitt explained.
They scan the streets for individuals with the "homeless look" to whom they can give sack lunches.
"If somebody has a bag with cans, they're most likely in need," he said.
They also visit "friends" they met in previous forays. They check out abandoned buildings and under bridges. Their friends often live in some strange places.
"We're just out to let you know that Jesus loves you," Sayre tells a homeless man as he hands him a sack lunch.
Feeding the homeless
Hewitt and Sayre, both members of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church, said God instructed them to minister and to feed the homeless.
"I didn't have any kind of vision. I just felt the Holy Spirit telling me to go out and feed the homeless," Sayre said. "God doesn't say that he wants you to be successful, he calls you to be faithful. I believe they can be changed. We're not the ones that's going to change them - it's God."
And so the ministry was born.
The two men cooked a batch of stew one Sunday and went naively in search of homeless people, but they couldn't find anybody.
Then they asked a newspaper hawker on a street corner where they might find some homeless people, Hewitt said. He told them where to look.
"We fed five people that day. Now we know what to look for," Sayre said.
Hewitt and Sayre co-founded Love and Care Ministries. In addition to feeding the poor, Hewitt recently started The Mission, a ministry aimed at reaching out to people on the street.
"We started (the feeding) ministry because we want to minister to the very bottom of the socio-economic scale - to the people who have been rejected by all other parts of society," said Sayre, who owns Express Medical Supply. "Yeah, many of them are fraudulent. Yeah, many of them drunks. But Jesus loves them."
Christians often do not "see" the homeless, Sayre said.
"They're social outcasts," he said. "Now, I see people all over the town that are living out of Dumpsters. A lot of people just don't notice them."
Hewitt said Christians need to remember Proverbs 14:31, which states, "He who oppresses the poor reproaches his maker, but he who honors Him has mercy on the needy."
Society looks at these people who have made bad choices and landed on the street and says "Shame on you," Sayre said.
"But we think these people need to be treated like children who need help in redeveloping their most basic skills. Once we get the basics taken care of, then they need their spiritual needs taken care of."
Many of the individuals Hewitt and Sayre met, who were initially on the streets, have moved into some of Abilene's poorer neighborhoods.
"We followed these people into the neighborhoods, and we met their friends," Sayre said. "Many of them were literally one paycheck away from being on the street. A lot of these people have very substandard income. A good many of them run out of food."
Whatever the need, Hewitt, Sayre and others have tried to help, including assisting a homeless couple living near a creek to find a home.
"If it hadn't been for (Hewitt and Sayre), we wouldn't have a house right now," said the woman, who now faithfully attends The Mission.
With the assistance of friends, they've put people up in hotels, found them jobs and basically done whatever they could.
"We want to become their friends. We don't want it to be a once-a-month thing," Hewitt explained.
What started with only Hewitt and Sayre now includes dozens of people from various churches.
"We're blessed more than the people we see," said Kenny Buchanan, who helps with the feeding ministry.
Each Sunday they help deliver the sack lunches, which now contain a Scripture verse and the address and phone number of The Mission.
A new church
The Mission, located at 243 Fannin, is an inner-city ministry aimed at "reaching people for the Kingdom," said Hewitt, who pastors the church. The church opened Easter Sunday.
"The Mission was designed to minister to the homeless and low, low-income people in Abilene," he said.
About 60 to 80 people gather every Sunday in the warehouse-like building in north Abilene to worship.
A rugged wooden cross, draped with a sheet, stands behind the altar. A piano sits in one corner.
People come to The Mission just as they are - in tattered jeans and a T-shirt or in a suit and tie - to sit on rickety folding seats and listen to Hewitt.
Dressed in a casual shirt and tan Dockers, Hewitt preaches a simple message: love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
"You've got to give up pride and let God take your life," Hewitt told his parishioners one recent Sunday. "You've got to totally give it to him. It's about committing your whole life, not just a little, to God."
The Mission, sponsored by Pioneer Drive Baptist Church, was the realization of a dream for the 35-year-old Hewitt. He joined Pioneer Drive about eight years ago with his wife and two children.
"Mark didn't make The Mission happen," he said. "God made it happen. This is God's house. This is God's altar. Our knees should be on the altar, not just on Sunday but every day."
In a quiet voice, Hewitt said, "I'm just praying that this little church will always have love and compassion."
Hewitt met many of his church members on the streets of Abilene while delivering sack lunches.
"The Mission is what we've been waiting for," said Sherry Parker, who lived on the streets for years. "It's our church."
Hewitt said he realizes many of his church members have deep spiritual, physical and mental wounds.
"I'm not the one who's going to solve them all," he said. "It'll be the man upstairs."
Realization of a dream
Hewitt, an employee of West Texas Utilities, began praying about seven months ago that God would provide a building to minister to the "friends" he had met on the streets. He then located the site at 234 Fannin.
The building will eventually house a clothes closet, a food pantry and showers, he said. Love and Care Ministries also has offices there.
"Right now, we are fixing to start tearing out walls and get the electrical work done for the clothes ministry," said Hewitt, a 1979 Cooper High School graduate. "We'll do the bathrooms and kitchens last because that'll take the longest."
Once renovation is complete, people will be able to come in, take a shower, get clothes and food, and then go on their way, Hewitt said.
"Things are going incredibly well," he added. "I've been thoroughly blessed. Since The Mission has been open, we've had people calling and saying, 'I want to be a part of it.' "
Hewitt also has begun making the speaking rounds at various churches whose members want to know more about the ministry.
"More and more people are becoming interested," he said. "It's
a God thing."