A Greenville church ministry needs a miracle as it faces closure

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(11-23-22)Scripture is full of miraculous stories of seas parting; the sick being healed, and the dead being raised. Because those were such spectacular events, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that miracles happen in our lives every day. Every breath we take. Healing from cancer. And yes, the birth of a child.

The very thought can leave us with goosebumps. We see miracles everyday working in our community when we give some people the opportunity to shower or offer them as much as a cold bottle of water.

Bishop Lee Bowling & Bishop Andy Roberts came to Greenville, Ohio to bring about change and to impart into lives of everyone they come in contact with, as they do everywhere they go. The often work with the homeless, widows and orphans’ and less fortunate who are often overlooked, or what the world would consider an outcast.

They established The Tabernacle on 527 Markwith Ave, in Greenville, Ohio.

They need some divine intervention. They are trying to raise $5,000 to get them through to March, 2023.

The Tabernacle Church believes it has a higher calling – despite the possibility of having to possible close its doors. Bishop Lee Bowling said, “I’ve had many sleepless nights over what to do in the last few days and the Lord spoke to me and said even I had to have help carrying my cross. I knew then that I needed to make my request known to others.”

We have invested over $60,000 in the community of Darke County in the last 10 months. We invested everything into this community and now need a miracle ourselves to get us over the financial burden we are under.

When we came to the area, we established SHOWERS OF BLESSINGS that offers Bringing Hot Showers, Dignity, and Well-Being to Our Houseless Neighbors in Greenville, Ohio. Our services are always growing and so is the needs to expand the ministry. We help people get Free Cell Phone, Free Job Hunting and Free Transportation, Free Dental and health check-ups, Free Rx-Cards.  

This Church Even Found a Brilliant Way to Help Homeless People, and It All Starts with a Mailbox.

“Ohio Homelessness Statistics shows” As of January 2020, Ohio had an estimated 10,655 experiencing homelessness on any given day, as reported by Continuums of Care to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Of that Total, 906 were family households, 730 were Veterans, 736 were unaccompanied young adults (aged 18-24), and 753 were individuals experiencing chronic homelessness.

A homeless person can be described as someone who does not have a permanent residence. It is where an individual may live on the streets, sleep in a car, stay in a shelter or anywhere that is classed as a non-permanent address.

When people think of home, they often focus on what’s inside. But there’s a privilege in having a place to live that’s often forgotten having a permanent address.

For people experiencing homelessness, an address can be a gateway to gaining that home. Without an address, an individual can’t receive disability benefits, social security payments or veteran’s benefits. They can’t open a bank account, which is often needed to collect earnings from employers. They can’t receive notifications about newly available affordable housing, messages from their children’s school or correspondence from family members.

In other words, the resources that homeless people need require an address, but in order to have an address — a home, apartment or place to sleep — the individual needs to first obtain those resources.

This vicious cycle has come to be known as the Postal Paradox — and leaders at The Church of God of the Apostolic Faith saw an opportunity to disrupt it. The church opened up its reception office so that people experiencing homelessness could have a permanent address to receive mail and use when applying to jobs. Today, the program is called The Window.

Archbishop Lee Bowling

“[The Window] is how we keep them connected. It’s just one small little layer of making a significant difference in someone’s life who doesn’t have a permanent residence.” Said Bishop Andy Roberts, senior pastor of The Tabernacle

We also help people get ID (State Id, Social Security Card or Birth Certificate) we are a lifeline to getting the community contact to other services within the community, we put people up in motel when we can do so who are homeless.  We have even used the church as a day shelter – H.O.P.E.S Home to get people out of the harsh cold weather.

It’s heart-breaking and disturbing to see, homeless on the streets especially when it’s cold (or even worse, freezing) and it’s startlingly at odds with the obvious wealth and prosperity flooding into Greenville, yet the homeless had no place to really go until now.

Our mission is to reach out to the: Oppressed, Downtrodden, Rejected, Underprivileged, Depressed, Lonely, homeless, poor, elderly and those that are Imprisoned, Hospitalized, Institutionalized, Sick and Shut-Ins, imparting to them Life, Hope, Healing, Deliverance and Comfort.

We have been a lifeline in this community and taken our own money and invested in this vision for nothing more than to reach people with the truth of God’s word and watch lives be changed with the positive acts of kindness and love that we do.

It’s just a sad situation to end up after all of these years of ministry in this place that we have to ask for help in this ministry. We have never had to really do this as our ministry has always carried itself. However, due to unforeseen circumstances we are at the place where people must decide if what we provide is worth them getting involved and helping us with this vision.

Times are hard for everyone but if we will come together as one voice, we can accomplish this goal and task at hand. Financial troubles are everywhere I understand that but if we close our doors, we can open in another city, but I do not feel a call to those cities. I feel God wants to bring unity to Greenville and do a work with those in this city who are struggling and are homeless and we are praying for a miracle, in the weeks to come. “We’re all hanging on by a thread,” said Bowling but we have a Big God who can do the impossible.

We were soon to have added a literacy program for the adults; math and reading; tutoring.” Many people we work with cannot even read and write. But it would be a true miracle to keep that prayer alive in itself and this could be beaming light to helping even more people to get jobs and survive in a unkind world to many of them.

The church is hoping for prayer warriors more than ever now – and divine intervention – so it can carry on a mission that is not done just yet in Darke County.

We have worked, labored, worked the ground, and now I’m WAITING on the harvest. Sometimes the waiting period seems to be long and lonely. Last night in prayer I told The Lord, “I will WORSHIP in the waiting.” This is the Lord’s ministry and he will do with it as he see’s fit.

You may reach the church at 527 Markwith Ave, Greenville, Ohio 45331. Call 937-459-4027 Email seniorbishopleebowling@minister.com or give online at https://gofund.me/b11c8a33                                        and the CashApp $COGGreenville.

Through Your Generosity We can continue to Deliver Tangible Help & Hope to Those Who Need It Most.