Interfaith Hospitality Network
If you could keep three families from being homeless for a week, would you? Would you help other Christians to offer food, shelter, and love to them, especially to the children?
If the answer is “yes” or even “perhaps” then please prayerfully consider volunteering to help with the ministry called the Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN).
Our congregation participates as a host congregation, meaning that the otherwise-homeless families (who are screened by the organization and meet its criteria) actually stay at our church for seven nights (Sunday evening through the following Sunday morning).
Watts St. Baptist Church joins us as a support congregation. Between us, we find enough volunteers to do these tasks daily:
- Van pickup of the guests from the IHN day house at 5:30 pm
- Evening hosting of the guests, from 5:30-8:30 pm
- Cooking the evening meal for the guests and hosts
- Overnight hosting of the guests, from 8:30 pm-7:00 am
- Van delivery of the guests to the day house at 6:30 am
- Providing food for the guests’ breakfasts and lunches
- Receiving the beds from the previous church on the first Sunday
- Sending the beds to the next church on the second Sunday
It takes a lot of people to accomplish this ministry, and yet we do it four times a year (sometimes five). Why? Because we are Christians who care about the welfare of what Jesus called “the least of these” and we want to do our share to keep families from being homeless and help set them on the road to a better life.
How do you get involved? Make your interest known to Roger Loyd, the coordinator for IHN for our church, by sending an email to Roger Loyd or by telephoning him at 660-3452 (days) or 419-1663 (evenings). You volunteer for one specific task above, on one specific day. Before your first volunteer session, you will be trained and will receive a document indicating our congregation’s commitments and expectations for this ministry.
Congratulations! Our IHN coordinator, Roger Loyd, has been elected as President of the local Durham IHN board for 2009. This group coordinates the work of the thirty host and support congregations in Durham, and employs the two full-time staff members of DIHN, executive director Stephanie Williams and case worker Carol Bailey. To learn more, go to www.dihn.org.
