“Our vision is to see complete restoration in the lives of every homeless and oppressed man, woman and child in the world.”

NEWS UPDATES

The most current

July 4, 2010 by Chad

Things are constantly changing. Over the course of these last few months we’ve encountered more resistance than we could have ever imagined. From the city of Texarkana. From people who feel like the homeless population is going to hurt our local economy and scare people away. We’ve fought. We’ve prayed. We’ve cried.

I never imagined I would spend so much time focusing on things that took my attention of my passion, which is my homeless brothers and sisters. My afternoons in May were spent arguing with the city manager about the nature of homelessness, and sending emails to the city workers urging them not to call our homeless friends “children” and refer to our day shelter as an “adult daycare”. We were threatened by the city, saying that we would be personally held responsible if one of our homeless brothers or sisters committed a crime in the downtown district. The weight on our shoulders grew heavier. The more we sought council on how to move forward in the situation, the more we felt like we were pulling away from our original passion.

We still live in a country that doesn’t consider people equals. We live in a country full of followers of Christ who care nothing of the millions of homeless. Thankfully we’ve had the opportunity and blessing to meet many, many people in the Texarkana area who have shown a love to our homeless neighbors that has brought us much joy! I had the opportunity to witness so much community while downtown at I Love Evelyn. There’s nothing more perfect than that.

For those of you who have been wondering what is going down with I Love Evelyn, please know that we are still moving forward. Having a building was causing us more problems than it was helping, so we decided to cut ties with a physical building (for the time being). Also, we’ve had such little funding that continuing with a building just wasn’t a possibility. However, this has allowed us to get back to the original vision of I Love Evelyn - which was to spend time with our homeless friends and neighbors where they are. And that’s what we will be doing. We are working on getting a van and we will be spending time in the areas of Texarkana that most of our homeless friends are. We will invite them to come along with us throughout the day. We will eat lunch with them, counsel them through friendships and encouragement, and invite them to live life with us on a day to day basis. We will still feed, but out of the back of our van. We will hand out clothes, water, food, hygiene products, tents, pillows and sleeping bags - all out of the back of our van. We will do exactly what we were doing before, just without the building.

I think in some ways this was needed. While we had the building, people kept urging us to operate like other organizations. We tried that. We met with local organizations who are well respected and tried to adopt that model. And it’s a good model! But we are relationship driven. Spending one on one time is everything. And although you may argue, “Chad, that’s just not how things can be!” I believe differently.

I don’t want to worry about taking down the names of everyone I meet. I don’t want to keep of an account of everything I give away. I want to spend less time being an organization and more time being like Jesus.

Even though we have abandoned the building, we are currently praying and talking about starting a church that will function much like we did on a day to day basis, but with a clearer vision. This “church” wouldn’t be centered around a sunday morning service, but on serving our homeless friends throughout the week by opening up the building to allow them a place to be. Sean Minton will most likely be heading this up, so if you have any questions, talk to him about it!

As for me (Chad), I’ve already begun to spend time back on the road. My wife and I are about to purchase an RV and travel the country with friends to minister, love on, and invest in our homeless neighbors all across the country. Right now we are promoting our film, The Cries of the Broken, and trying to raise awareness and mobilize people to get involved. We are excited about what God is doing!

If you live in the Texarkana area, be on the look out for a van that has I LOVE EVELYN all across it! We will be taking 7 or 8 of our homeless friends at a time and taking them to lunch, spending quality time with them. Feel free to come along!

I love you!

Friday, May 14th!

May 11, 2010 by Chad

Here you go friends. This is our show to kick off the summer! We’ve got a lot of great ideas and things planned this summer for helping and loving on our homeless friends and neighbors, and this show is going to help us fund some of those things. So come one, come all! All profit goes to our homeless friends and neighbors!

Bring your mom, dad, and 4th cousin! And buy a ticket for your schoolteacher too! She might pass you if you do.

Love,
Chad

“Cries of the Broken”

May 8, 2010 by Chad

Over the past year and a half I have been working on and off on a short documentary chronicling a little bit of my journey across America spending time with homeless men and women. Stephen Searles was kind enough to film some of that journey, and he has been a great help in helping this film come to life.

As of right now, the film has been sent to a friend who is a sound expert of sorts. He is mastering the audio and should be done in the next 24 hours. After that, the film will be complete! The film is 39 minutes long, and is a snapshot of some of the stories I heard, faces I saw, and things I experienced. Hopefully it will help raise awareness about the realities of homelessness as well as what the word of God says about people in need.

Stay tuned for more information about the film!

Welcome to our new website!

May 8, 2010 by Chad

Hey friends!

Hopefully you enjoy the new website. We are very excited to have the opportunity to share more about what is going on at ILE with you through this site. There’s so much God is doing in our lives and in the lives of the men and women in need - but there is still much to be done!

This site is intended to help get you involved and keep you informed about what is going on day to day at I Love Evelyn. So browse around. Check things out. Read stuff. Look at photographs. Watch videos. And ask us any questions you may have.

We love you!