Often God is busily working His plan and accomplishing His purposes in the midst of circumstances that are painful, difficult and from a human standpoint often make no sense. Such was the case as God was laying the foundation for With Love From Jesus Ministries.
The year 2000 was a difficult and hard year for a local church. The pastor was asked to resign because of immorality. As a result, the church lost its shepherd. The sheep scattered. Over a period of several months, the church split several times as its members reeled from the pain. As the few members that remained began to seek God’s direction about their future as a church, He instructed them to stay together and wait.
God provided a new pastor, Kevin White. The church had no funds to provide a salary for their new pastor. The Lord’s instruction to this pastor was to trust Him and minister to the little flock. This caused a set of circumstances that led to real financial needs for his family. The now small church began to cry to the Lord for provision for their pastor as well as for the other families in the church in ministry.
A local grocery store began donating their out-dated food to this church each day to be used in the community. The pastor’s family and those in ministry were fed first. The remainder was given away to the needy in the community. The church found that the more they gave away, the more it received the next day. Very quickly, the outreach grew larger than the church.
In these beginning days there were three families that found themselves in a place of need—the Whites (Kevin, Shelly, their three children and a foster child), the Flowers (Greg, Tara, and their 5 children) and the Williams (Sam, Linda and two foster children). The Flowers/Williams shared a home for the purpose of ministry, and the funding for the home had been lost as an indirect result of the church crisis. These families became the core group as God established this ministry.
In the spring of 2001, the Whites lost their home and moved in with the Flowers/Williams household. Seventeen people living together in a three-bedroom house became quite a stretch and an adventure. God was teaching His children valuable lessons as He was also building a ministry. Staying close to the Lord for instruction, they continued to look to the Lord for His provision for them and for the growing numbers in the community that were being ministered to daily from the garage. They shared meals, cared for the children, ran the ministry and waited on the Lord. The Whites continued to live in the household through the summer. In September the Lord provided a new home for them.
By this time, With Love From Jesus Ministries had become a 501©3, non-profit ministry, embracing the entire Body of Christ and no longer connected with any one church. For sometime the ministry functioned from three garages/basements and three storage units.
In 2002 the Lord made provision for the first building for the ministry. It was an 8,000 sq. ft. facility. Within 90 days, it had moved to a 12,000 ft. facility. One year later, in November of 2003, through a set of marvelous “God appointments”, the ministry moved into the building at 421 Chapanoke Rd. on the Garner side of Raleigh.
WLFJ is currently ministering to over 4,000 families each month in addition to assisting many other ministries with helpful resources for their outreach. The distribution of food, household items, clothing, furniture, computers, and vehicles provides the opportunity to share the love of Christ to the community. As the community comes to shop several days each week, God is adding people into His Kingdom as the gospel is given to those who come. In the beginning days of this ministry, the focus was on getting physical needs met. Today the focus is on building God’s Kingdom using the items donated from the community as tools of blessing! Each month $250,000 in resources are collected and given away freely With Love From Jesus.
The most exciting privilege that God has given us is to call His Church together to display our unity and our love for Him as we together serve and care for those with great needs! On any given day, multiple churches join together to honor our Lord Jesus and bring Him glory by serving along side each other. This love for each other offers us a great opportunity to show our love for Him!
