Political battles. War in Ukraine and the Middle East. The economy. No doubt, there are many things that are discouraging right now. How about something really encouraging instead? Read this from The Table Irving church planter, Steve Allen.
The Table-Irving is blessed by multiple business contacts in Irving. One of those is the owner of a local coffee shop in the heart of downtown who has a big heart for helping people. She connected us with the owner of Meadowbrook Heights Apartments. This connection was significant, not only has it become a place for us to find affordable housing for the homeless that we work with every day, but the owner is also allowing us to do apartment ministry on site through The Table–neighborhood nights out, food distributions, financial literacy classes. At the close of our initial meeting, we took the obligatory selfie and posted it on Facebook, expressing the excitement at this new partnership. That next week I walked into the coffee shop for breakfast, saw the owner and she was beaming. She was so excited to be used by God to help make this new partnership happen. I mentioned that our apartment lead, Russell, is looking for support for the ministry and is in the process of raising money. I asked if it would be okay if he stopped by to talk about being a support partner in the work at Meadowbrook. She hesitated for a moment and said, “Give me a minute, I’ll be right back.” She came back holding an envelope and said, “I kid you not, fifteen minutes before you came in another customer left and gave me this envelope. They told me inside it is $500 and somebody will be coming in today looking for encouragement or asking for help.” They told her to give them this envelope and let them know that, “Jesus has your back.” She then gave me the envelope to give to Russell and told me to tell him to stop by anytime to talk about additional support.
Feeling better now?