This might seem like a slightly odd choice of things to write about. After all, isn’t it obvious? We do what we do because we care, and have compassion! This is, of course, completely true but our reason for running a night shelter for the tenth season goes deeper than that. This care and compassion is grounded in strong convictions about who God is and what he has done for us. Simply put: “We love because he (God) first loved us” (1 John 4:19). For us, this is the starting place. Everything we do flows first from a place of gratitude and thankfulness to God who has first shown his love towards us by sending his own son into his world to willingly die so that we might have true life! At GrowTH our response to this amazing love is to follow Jesus by loving him and loving others in the way he has shown and taught. God loves the poor and marginalized and so should we It is clear throughout the whole Bible that God takes the mistreatment and oppression of the poor very seriously. In one place in the Bible it says this: “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life”. (Psalm 22:22-23) In another place it states: "I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and will execute justice for the needy”. (Psalm 140:12) Such strong language shows us something of what God is like, his love for the poor, and his commitment to justice. Perhaps most vividly we see this demonstrated in the life of Jesus in the four gospels. Jesus spent the vast majority of his time with all the ‘wrong people’, according to his enemies. Instead of dining with the elite, wealthy, and prominent in society, he spent most of his time mingling with the poor and marginalised. In fact, Jesus spent so much time with such people that he was even accused of being a “glutton and a drunk” (Luke 7:34). Jesus, however, was not shaken by this. He came with love, mercy, and compassion, ignoring the heckling that surrounded him. Where the culture of the day dictated who was valuable and who could be accepted by God, Jesus came along, turning the culture on its head, announcing that all people, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status, were loved, invited, and welcomed by God. Jesus lived a radically different life. He did not come to be served as one might expect of a king but to serve (Mark 10:45), and it is this same lifestyle of love, compassion, and service that we want to adopt in what we do here at GrowTH. All people are "fearfully and wonderfully made"! It’s worth finishing with one last truth that shapes and drives all that we do; that is that every human being – every guest that comes into the shelter has intrinsic worth and value simply because we are all made by God. We strive to uphold this simple truth in all we do. It is not that we have worth or value due to anything we have done. We don’t earn it from successes and accomplishments. We have worth simply because the creator made us. So when guests come into the shelter, they come in with God-given value and dignity and we seek to maintain that the guests know this and are treated as such both through our words and our actions. I finish with a verse that sums up what we’re about: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy“.  Proverbs 31:8-9.
Below is a beautiful letter written by a guest who stayed in our shelter a few years ago. As you read it may it spark both joyful encouragement as well as continued passion to love and serve those experiencing homelessness! “All of us, for different reasons, are homeless. Some of us began to sink in the quagmire of alcohol, some have become a drug slave, some people are delving into gambling havens and some of us cannot sustain the everyday pressures of life. But all of us have become homeless for one main reason – we forgot God. Since plunging into the pleasures of life, we have stopped hearing and seeing. Many of us have lost a job, families and cozy homes. Into our lives and into our hearts came darkness, frost and suspense. We are on the edge of the precipice. In our blindness, we thought that God had forgotten us. It appears that we were wrong. When the pain and darkness has fettered in our hearts, God stretches us a helping hand. And God’s hands were you, Christians, who did not forget our God. Did not you have given us shelter when we come from the street? Is it not from your hand, we receive warm and delicious food, is it not your hand that has filled us with hot tea and coffee? “God stretches us a helping hand. And God’s hands were you Christians” Every one of us have come to you with their personal grief, and their own personal problems. But you took the time and patience for each of us. With your, and God’s help, a lot of us have been able to make things better for ourselves and are on the way to making a change in our lives to get out of this situation. It is difficult to express in words, what kind of work you have done. Shelter, clothing, food, a cup of hot tea and a warm welcome, it’s just a small part of what we have received from you. Much more important than all these goodies is the warmth that we have received from your heart. Many of our ears for a long time have not heard of compassion, hope, empowering, encouraging words and also a bit of well-needed humour. From your hearts, the warmth was sent into our hearts. For many of us, your support and consolation was like a life elixir. We hope that many of us have felt the grace of God through you and will return to the house of God, with an even stronger faith and love of God.”
In August’s blog post, Paul Tebb eloquently stated that here at GrowTH, our ‘care and compassion is grounded in strong convictions about who God is and what he has done for us.’ This means that our work is motivated by God’s incredible love for us and therefore, we want others to know and experience this same love. How did God show us His love? We believe Jesus – God in human flesh – lived a sinless life, suffered and died in order to save us and rose 3 days later from the dead to give us true life. This is the truth we celebrate at GrowTH, because we have been transformed by it and as a result, we want to see the lives of others transformed! The core of the work we do both in the night shelter and in GrowTH Housing is not apart from our faith, rather it is because of our faith. Recent reports show that there is a steady decline in the visibility and practice of religion in faith-based organisations for the homeless. In such a climate where visible faith is becoming invisible, some might fairly ask, ‘Why not just focus on people’s physical needs and leave the faith sharing to the church?’ Or they may ask, ‘Why are you so concerned with wanting people to know what you believe?’ These are important and valid questions. And to answer questions like these, let’s take a look at two of the most important values we hold dear: hope and compassion. Hope The message of hope for our guests and residents is hope for their lives, wellbeing, and their future. We care deeply for the material and physical needs of our guests and residents and want to see their lives changed for the better. Yet, this idea of hope goes beyond the physical hope of better finances or a place to stay; it speaks of an eternal hope that we cannot have without Jesus. This kind of hope comes from truly knowing and having a relationship with God. If we truly want to give people authentic, transforming hope, we have to understand that meeting material and physical needs can only take us so far – because there is more! We aim to give hope through the good news of Christ. Jesus said ‘I came that they may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10). We want to place this offer of a fully abundant life before our guests and residents so they have the opportunity to encounter God. Nobody keeps wonderful, life-changing news to themselves, and surely nothing is more loving than to offer such a hope: This is why we share the Gospel. Compassion We aim to be compassionate and loving toward those in our night shelter and housing projects. We want to show compassion by paying attention to the needs of those we come into contact with. This is because the second greatest commandment is to ‘love our neighbours as ourselves’ which means we are to care for and be concerned for others as we would our own selves. Jesus in the Bible shows this kind of compassion on those who are unwell and sick. His compassion moved him to act and attend to their physical needs, like in Matthew 14:13-14: ‘Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns’. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. So we follow Jesus in caring for people’s physical needs. But this compassion would not reach its full potential if we didn’t share the Good News with our guests. The same Bible that shows Jesus caring for the needy and instructs us to love our neighbour also instructs us to share the Good News, because in the Good News, ultimate compassion and love can be found. Again, we follow Jesus’ example, because not only did he heal the sick, He also died so that people could have true life, not only in this life, but the life to come. Therefore, nothing we can do physically is more compassionate than sharing with someone what Jesus did for them. We take joy in sharing what he did with others so they can come into contact with his compassion! We would be remiss if we didn’t share this Good News! At GrowTH, we welcome all people regardless of faith, ethnicity and sexual orientation, and whenever we do share our faith, we do so sensitively and respectfully, we never force anyone. We share through organic one-to-one conversations or through other means such as praying with guests, optional Bible studies or inviting them to church. We want our guests and residents to encounter a place of true hope and compassion. And we know that ultimate compassion and ultimate hope is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To read stories of guests’ and residents’ journeys of faith, click below to read our latest annual report.
