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Mobile mission Effective
Compassion: Connecting the homeless to physical and spiritual
lifelines | Mark Bergin
The Bridge to Life Center's 10-building design includes
family housing units, a day-care center, men's transitional living quarters,
a dining hall, education facilities, playing fields, and a 200-seat chapel.
The center is a long-held dream of entrepreneurial minister Ron Marlette, but
by 2008 he should finally be able to trade in his itinerant rescue mission
for a stable residence for the addicts and low-income families he hopes to
assist. Want to read more?
Get news and commentary each week from WORLD Magazine and up-to-the-minute
news and features from WORLDMag.com. Click here to find out
how! Eight years ago, Marlette founded Mission Solano and
began sheltering The mission's Nomadic Sheltering Program is now
duplicated in municipalities throughout the nation. The model not only
introduces desperate people to the hospitality of church communities but also
inspires mercy ministry in previously apathetic congregations. Many pastors
love it. "It's gotten some people who were sitting on the sidelines
actually involved in ministering," said Art Zacher,
pastor of On a recent Tuesday evening, Berean
Baptist members barbequed burgers and hot dogs for 50 homeless guests. The
visitors lugged floor pads and sleeping bags into the church before eating
and catching a short sermon. During the ensuing free time, the men located
sleeping spots in the sanctuary, some laying their gear on the stage, others
between pews or around the baptismal. The women set up camp in an adjoining
room. Kim Collins and her newborn daughter Caylia
Rose found privacy in an office down the hall, a special accommodation most
of the nine partnering churches provide for women with young children.
Collins, 21, and her fiancé, Dustin Swafford, moved to Several hours earlier in the sweltering afternoon heat,
little Caylia stayed cool in the air-conditioned
offices of the mission's community outreach center, a hodgepodge of three
disheveled buildings and two portable trailers that provides space for Bible
studies and a six-man drug-rehab facility. Tony Robbins, the rehab program's first graduate, sat in
those offices, too. He now manages the program, having obtained degrees in
Bible theology and counseling psychology at Outside the offices, lines formed at the nearby shower
shack, the mission's one facility that operates with county funding. "We
promised not to pipe 'Amazing Grace' into the showers or put John 3:16 on the
soap," Marlette joked as he stepped inside the outreach center's small
kitchen and chapel space. Marlette, who read his first book in a jail cell and
converted to Christianity at a 1983 Billy Graham rally, has never apologized
to government officials for his organization's evangelical approach. Nor is
he overly dependent on the public funding. But when political pressure to
curb homelessness has local politicians clamoring to write checks, Marlette
does not object. "Some missions are scared to death of even sitting in
the same room with a politician, let alone dialoguing and building
friendships with them," he said. "But you don't have to compromise
your faith in order to do this." The Mission Solano board decided against toning down the
evangelical flavor of their annual banquet last year, despite the presence of
numerous civic leaders. After a come-to-Jesus gospel presentation, The city of Still, the bulk of financial support originates in the
private sector. Mission Solano generates more than half of its $2 million
annual operating budget through social enterprises: coffee roasting, two
thrift stores, and an auto lot. The businesses provide opportunities for job
trainingeven long-term employment. "We really want to train people to
do work," says social enterprise director Shawn West, as he drives
through town in the mission's newly acquired delivery truck. "It's neat
to be part of a business that's not just about the bottom line. For us, the
bottom line is getting people off the streets." West donated his
coffee-roasting business when he joined the mission's staff last year. Nate Ratliff, 41, spent 14 years in and out of prison
before entering the drug-rehab program earlier this year. He now drives a
truck for the mission, helping collect donations for the thrift stores. His
teenage children have begun to trust him again. "My priorities have
totally changed," he said. "I wasn't really thinking about baptism
a year ago." Area businesses are handling building costs for the new
facility. HomeAid Northern California, the
charitable arm of the region's Home Builders Association, has pledged about
$3.5 million. Federal Home Loan Bank of Such community support was not always so readily
available. At a circuit court meeting in 2002, citizens rabidly opposed the
construction of a permanent homeless shelter in any of the city's
neighborhoods. Marlette's disappointment descended rapidly to despair that
evening when a program participant stabbed a staff member to death on the
kitchen floor of the outreach center. "I knew what the front page of
every newspaper in the county was going to be the next day," Marlette recalls.
"I thought to myself, 'All right God, this is it. There's no way they're
going to let Mission Solano go anywhere after this.'" But the publicity sparked a public rush of support for a
rescue mission to help fight such violence. Mission Solano assumed that
mantle. While nomadic sheltering connects people to churches and
provides safety throughout the night, it does not foster the stability of a
permanent facility. The Bridge to Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine
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