Give Hope
End Hunger
Church’s hunger ministry feeds Skid Row’s homeless
By Sara Shelton
Home looks a little different down on Skid Row. There are no white picket fences, no meticulously manicured lawns, no picturesque homes lining the blocks. Here, the sidewalks are littered with wilted cardboard boxes and dilapidated camping tents that provide shelter to the nearly 8,000 homeless people who lay their heads down each night on the streets of this dispirited area of Los Angeles.
Years ago, Ron Thomas was among these nameless faces making his home on the streets and sidewalks of Skid Row.
“I was homeless… dirty, hungry, in need,” Thomas recalls. “I was smoking crack cocaine and my life was a mess.”
Yet in an instant, his life changed. As he sat one afternoon on a local park bench, a little girl approached Thomas to deliver one simple message of truth: Jesus loves you.
“I knew then without a shadow of a doubt, this was my way out: through the Lord Jesus Christ.” Compelled by the power of Christ, Thomas cleaned up his life, got off the streets and left Los Angeles to start fresh. But this same power soon sent him right back to Skid Row, this time to plant and lead Set Free Church in the heart of the homeless population. Set Free is a church plant of the Los Angeles Baptist Association and the California Southern Baptist Convention.
Since the doors opened at Set Free Church, the goal has been simple: to reach the homeless, hurting, addicted and hopeless who are forgotten and often lost to the desperate lifestyle on Skid Row. Thomas saw his life changed by the simple outreach of a young girl. He hopes to replicate this type of simple outreach through the ministry of Set Free Church.
Having once been one of the desperate people he now serves, Thomas recognizes the need to begin this sort of ministry by meeting their most basic needs first.
ON MISSION • Fall 2011 37
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