Blog | Love Wins Ministries

Kidron Mennonite Church Mission Trip

May 5th, 2010 § 0

A group from Kidron Ohio Mennonite Church was on a mission trip to Raleigh and wanted to help us here at Love Wins! Never one to pass up free labor, we said why not?

We spent an afternoon assembling hygiene kits that we will distribute late to our friends who live outside. Because of their help, we assembled over 100 kits that will provide much needed hygiene items to people who desperately need them.

You can see more pictures from their visit on our Facebook page.

If your church or small group would like to help us out here at Love Wins, please let us know!

Love Wins Spotted in the Wild

May 5th, 2010 § 0

My friend Jennifer sent in this picture of her beautiful daughter doing the I Love You sign, in front of one of our Love Wins Stickers!

If you have photos of your Love Wins stickers in the “wild”, please send them in or post them on our Facebook page. We want your help to spread the message that love truly does win!

(You can get your sticker here!)

The Bunny is Gone, But it is Still Easter

May 4th, 2010 § 0

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on January 22nd of 2010. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

Sure, the Easter bunny has gone away and the crème filled eggs are half-off in stores now, but on the Christian calendar, it’s still Easter – a time of celebrating Resurrection.

Maintaining our ministry of love and presence means having to search hard for Resurrection. You find out your alcoholic friend is now experimenting with heroin. Or you watch someone slide further and further from their community and into despair, or you cry with someone who just lost their food stamps and now they have no idea how they will get the still needed groceries. Sometimes, for those for those society has marginalized, it’s just one long Friday. Sunday, and it’s promise of Resurrection seem unlikely at best, and a taunting myth at worst. Somedays, it gets so bad that to hope in Resurrection at all, you have to hunt for it.

You will you see hints of Resurrection long before you find the thing itself – but only if you are looking for them. The long estranged family that finally takes Fred’s calls, and then send him a ticket to come home. Danny getting out of jail and telling us about his new-found sobriety. The guy who gets the pair of boots you guys paid for, who cries because the increase in income means he can move out of his car and into a rooming house. Hints are out there – but you just have to search for them.

Or take our friends Karen and Steve who, you may remember, were living outside in a tent until Troy and Marti invited them to live with them for a season. Over the last few months there have been hints of what the future could look like – Steve’s new job, the vocational training program that accepted Karen, Steve entering the GED program, the new glasses for Karen so she can see, the opening of a first bank account.

New life, however, is always accompanied with birth pangs. Because nothing they have experienced thus far in life has prepared them for this new life, with bank accounts and leases and a community that cares about them, it hasn’t been smooth sailing – not at all. And more than once, Troy and Marti have wondered if they bit off more than they could chew. And several times they were sure they had.

But this weekend Karen and Steve move into their own apartment – in what Karen says is the nicest place she has ever lived. They’re moving on Saturday, but for them, it’s Easter Sunday, with Resurrection and new life breaking out all over.

They have moved into new places before, and there have been new jobs before. Things aren’t magically better – there will be stumbles and failures and slips and falls, just like before. But this time they will not be alone. This time there will be grace. This time there will be love. And if Easter tells us anything, it is that Love Wins.

Thank you for all the love and financial support you have given to Karen and Steve thus far. Their struggle is far from over – in some ways it is just beginning. Please continue to pray for them and us. And of course, the only way we are able to walk beside people like Karen and Steve is because of your continued financial support.

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

Helping Karen

May 4th, 2010 § 0

Dear Friends,

It occurred to me several years ago that most (all?) of the good things that happen in our lives come about because of our relationships. If you see people who are not getting the results in life they want, it is probably because their relationships do not support the achieving of those results.

Put another way, we believe people who live outside don’t have a housing problem – they have a relationship problem. When there is a power inequality between two groups, the onus for changing that is on the more powerful group. Therefore, the single most effective thing we can do to end homelessness is to build those relationships.

My friend Marti has bought into that. Even though her husband is unemployed and their own stability is far from certain, she comes out on Saturday morning to make friends who have less stuff than she does. For her, these are real relationships – so when she read in my last email that her friend Karen was living in a tent with her husband, she decided that just would not do.

Which is why on Christmas Day, Karen and Steve moved in with Marti and Troy and their two kids. Because Marti believes that if Karen is her real friend, then she can’t say she follows Jesus while her friend sleeps outside in a tent in 20 degree weather. (You can read the full story here).

Because of their relationship with Marti and Troy, Steve and Karen are now indoors and safe. And when Karen had a heart attack a few weeks ago, she had someone to take her to the emergency room. And after she had surgery to put a stent in, she had a safe and warm place to recuperate. And when her prescriptions totaled over $230 a month, she had people to help her with that. Karen would tell you the only reason she is alive right now is because of Marti and Troy.

Karen and Steve are housed right now, but not stable – long-term they need their own place and a steady job for Steve. Troy and Marti are stable, but barely. He is unemployed, but managing to get a bit of temp work here and there. However, their food budget has now shot up, having these two extra people to feed. So, I am asking for your help.

Troy and Marti need some help with the financial burden of having two extra mouths to feed at a time when their own resources are stretched so thin.

Karen’s medications are running over $200 a month. We are working with the drug companies to hopefully get this reduced, but until that happens, we are committed to seeing she gets her meds.

If you are able to help us cover the food or medical costs, go here and make a one time gift – even if it is only $10 or $15. Just pick “Karen Fund” from the drop down. (To send a check, just put Karen Fund on the memo line.) Of course, your gifts are tax deductible, etc.

And Steve needs work – any kind of work. He has a construction background, but is eager to do almost anything. If you are in the Triangle and you hire people, let me know if you would be willing to talk to him – I personally will vouch for him.

And whether you can give or not, please pray for Karen and Steve and Marti and Troy. After all, they need the prayers and, well, you could probably use the practice.

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

Not Your Typical Christmas Newsletter

May 4th, 2010 § 0

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on December 22nd of 2009. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

Typical non-profit wisdom says to send an end of the year introspective email to your list, telling of all the great things your organization did over the last year. I get that email from ministries and causes I personally support and I swear they are all written from the same template.

Doing it that way, I would tell you the victories of the last year – the new churches we partnered with, the dozens of new volunteers we picked up, the new relationships we added. That email would mention the addition of Saturday morning to our weekend breakfast line-up, the new leaders who have emerged from the ranks of our volunteers, the generosity of the 20 or so regular donors who contribute monthly, so we can budget and buy shoes and food and pay me enough to cover my rent and (most months) my groceries.

But in that email, Karen gets lost. Sure, we helped her get prescriptions filled, and she’s one of dozens for whom we bought shoes. But that email would not, could not, tell you anything about the tent she lives in with her husband since there is no shelter they can both be in and be together. You wouldn’t know that one very cold night after dark I got them blankets and sleeping bags that your money provided. Maybe you read on the blog about her being sexually assaulted, but you wouldn’t have heard about us standing in line together to get her seizure medication filled, or about her crying into my shoulder last week when she came to terms with this being her first homeless Christmas. That stuff just doesn’t fit into your typical Christmas email.

But I am OK with that, because we are not your typical homeless ministry. Three winters into this, I still feel funny calling this a ministry or organization – it is just me and some folks like me trying our best to love very broken people no one else wants to love. Over the last year, some of you have came alongside us, physically and financially, and helped us do that. And we are very grateful. We could not do it without you.

Others might be testing us, feeling us out. I understand that. There are lots of folks out there asking for your time and money, and they have awesome statistics and inspiring stories. They have great letterhead and warm and fuzzy emails and tales of success and overcoming adversity. That’s what they do, and they do it well.

But if you want to learn to love people everyone but Jesus has given up on, if you want to be blessed by people who have nothing to give you, if you want to see love win – well, that’s what we do, and we are pretty much the only ones out here doing it. And we would love to have you along for the ride.

(If you want to get your donation in before the end of the year, do that over here. We have to have it postdated by the 31st for it to count for 2009 – plus it helps us in our budgeting for 2010!)

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

Thank you!!

April 30th, 2010 § 0

Last month, we had a wonderful benefit event for Love Wins…and it never could have happened without the generous contributions of so many people and businesses!

Our delayed-but-sincerely-heartfelt thanks goes to:

Adventure Landing
The Angus Barn
Barley & Vine
Brixx Wood Fired Pizza
Burning Coal Theatre
Brio Tuscan Grille
Carino’s Italian (Brier Creek)
Carolina Ale House
Cathy’s Paint Your Own
Champps Americana
Charlie Goodnight’s Comedy Club
The Cheesecake Factory
Chick-fil-A @ Town Ridge Square
Cold Stone Creamery
Comedy Worx
Cracker Barrel
Fat Daddy’s
Frankie’s Fun Park
Fuddrucker’s
Hand Embroidery by Katie Moore
Harris Teeter (Leesville Road)
Hooters (Morrisville)
I Crochet Therefore I Am
Imagine Boutique
Karen Spears Zacharias
Longhorn Steakhouse
O’Charley’s (Brier Creek)
Old North Images
Olive Garden
Papa John’s Pizza (Strickland Road)
Pier 1 Imports
Mason’s
McDonald’s (Creedmoor Road)
MP Originals
NOFO
Red Robin
Regal Entertainment Group
Rush Rush Music
Sam Ash Music Stores
Simply Photography
Starbucks (Brier Creek)
Sweet Tomatoes
Total Wine
Tropical Smoothie Cafe

…and a HUGE thanks to Melissa Poole and family, who pulled together all the raffle, silent auction and food donations.

10 Plates of Turkey

April 27th, 2010 § 0

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on November 24th of 2009. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

It’s that time of year again. Crisp air, turning leaves and talk of holiday plans. And if you are in a church, odds are your church has talked about some way to reach out to the homeless.

In the last three years, I have heard all sorts of plans to reach out to the homeless over the holidays – everything from a hot plate dinner taken to the park to a worship service designed especially for the homeless, complete with nativity re-enactment. Seriously – with a baby Jesus and everything.

I know you folks think I am something of a cynic, but even I recognize that the intentions behind every one of these outreach plans are good and loving (or at least, I prefer to think they are). But that is not the point.

The point is, those outreach plans have nothing to do with the very real people with very real fears, hopes and dreams that live outside. Instead, they are more often about us, and how this will look to the community and on our website. Or what we think we ought to be doing “this time of year”.

If we really want to be a blessing to those who have less than us, we really ought to have some conversations with them instead of just talking to them. After all, would your faith community plan an outreach to the Latino community and never discuss it prior to launch with a single Latino? I didn’t think so – or at least I sure hope not!

And if we have those conversations, we will hear about the 10 plates of food they are offered on Thanksgiving day… and how no one comes out to feed them in the middle of May. How they get 30 blankets in December, but how they shiver in March.

You see, those of us who live indoors (Normals, some of my friends call us) tend to believe that because we live indoors we are instilled with insight as to what the “less fortunate” need. Because they are the broken ones, not us. Or maybe our “unbrokenness” is a front we keep up, to hide how screwed up we really are.

That is the story of Jesus, anyway – that we are all broken. That none of us have our stuff together. And that the only thing that can save any of us is love. And not just the last 45 days of the year, but every single day. And if that sort of love is going to take root, maybe we ought to start listening to each other.

Love Wins. All year round.

Hugh Hollowell
http://lovewins.info

PS: If you would like to give to Love Wins Ministries, you can find out how to do that here. You will have our gratitude and a tax deduction, of course, but you will help keep folks warm all winter long- and that is no small thing.

Don’t Go To Church

April 27th, 2010 § 0

This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on October 10th of 2009. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and we won’t fill your inbox with crazy spam. (Or even sane spam.)

Dear Friends,

Several weeks ago I sat in a room full of pastors from downtown churches in a forum called by the Raleigh Police Department. Ostensibly, it was to talk about how faith communities can properly secure their premises, especially in light of Martha’s murder a few months ago. The gist of the presentation was about church security – having your facilities well lit, etc. And then, they started talking about “the homeless.”

We saw pictures of dangerous criminals (their words), all but one of whom were black, as examples of the sort of people we should be watching out for. (Of course, most of the folks in the audience were white, so this played with their stereotypes perfectly.) Then they presented us all with trespass letters, which, if signed and placed on file with the police, would give them permission to arrest folks found on their property after hours. The entire presentation built to this, and you got the feeling this was the whole reason for the meeting.

There aren’t near enough shelter beds. If you are unhoused and needed a safe place, you might think about going to sit out of the rain under the awning at the corner church. Especially since the church is closed so you won’t scare any of the rich white people who attend there. If you thought this way you wouldn’t be alone. There are several churches downtown where friends of mine sleep – behind their dumpsters, in the shrubs, under the awning. Because it is well lit, clean and generally safe.

The police work for the city, which makes revenue from developers, who sell houses to rich people who do not like seeing homeless people. So the police are under a lot of pressure to “clean up” the homeless problem. The police are frustrated by the churches that have allowed people to sleep on their grounds. So, the police scare the daylights out of the church leaders, throw Martha’s death in the mix, show some scary pictures of black men and convince a goodly number of the downtown churches to put up no trespassing signs, enabling the police to act on those trespass letters they wanted us to sign.

The presenters assured us they did not want to interfere with our mission – they just wanted us to help them keep us ’safe’.

I was the only one who stood up and said that our mission does not call for us to be safe – it calls for us to show extreme love and radical hospitality. I asked the people, preachers and police alike, the following question:

“If you are tired and hungry and alone and have no home and no hope – if you cannot go to the church, where should you go? “

No one had any answers to that. The police officer told me he understood, but that was not his job.

But it is my job. It is our job. To extend grace and love to the other. Not to put up signs to keep people who don’t look like us away.

So I have spent the last few weeks telling my friends who sleep outside that churches are not safe places anymore. That the No Trespassing signs mean they will be arrested. And when they ask me where they are supposed to go if they can’t go to church, I tell them I don’t know. And when they leave, I cry.

Love Wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell
http://lovewins.info

Heads Up

April 14th, 2010 § 0

Several housekeeping notes…

As you can tell, we are doing an overhaul on the site – this should make it more user friendly and less management intensive in the long run. In the short run, however, it means a bit more work… Bear with us while we get through it.

I sent our (more or less) monthly newsletter out today – where I spent some time talking about Easter and the search for Resurrection in what we do. If you are not getting our emails, please go here and sign up. (We won’t spam you, and never share your info with anyone.)

In the aftermath of the book and all the attention we have gotten, I have gotten quite a few requests to come speak at churches, Sunday School Classes and even a Rotary Club to talk about our mission of loving people without preconditions. If you are in charge of picking speakers for your group, I would love to talk to you about it. Everything you need to know about getting me to come speak is at my speaking site.

Things are going very well here – but we are very busy – much more so that at this time last year. Hopefully, some actions we have taken to make things more manageable will begin to bear fruit soon. Until then, we will update the blog as we have time and are able.

And one last thing: We have had several new donors come on board – Thank you so much for that! The single largest thing that determines the level of ministry and service we can provide is recurring financial contributions. We would much rather have $25 a month than $500 one time, because we can budget the $25 a month. If you are not making regular contributions and would like to, please consider doing that on this page.

Thanks so much for all the love and support!

Love Wins in the N&O

March 24th, 2010 § 0

Thanks to everyone who came out to the benefit party on Sunday! You can see pictures from the event at our Facebook page.

News & Observer religion report Yonat Shimron came out to the benefit – here’s an excerpt from her article in Monday’s paper:

Zacharias, who grew up in a Georgia single-wide, is not out to debunk Christianity. She is a believer, and her book is laced with stories of people who, she thinks, best convey a genuine Christian message. Hugh Hollowell, who founded Love Wins, is one of them.

A former Marine who gave up a successful career as a financial planner, Hollowell now devotes his life to helping homeless people in Moore Square. He is one of the people featured in Zacharias’ book, a collection of 19 stories.

About 100 people – including four or five homeless people – showed up at the Meymandi Theatre at the Murphey School for a silent auction and raffle to benefit that ministry. They listened to Hollowell and Zacharias propound their view of the Christian message – one of neighborly love.

Read the full article here.

(Word on the street is that a second article focused primarily on Love Wins is in the works…so stay tuned!)

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