Profile of giving
With help from Convoy of Hope, a small church reaches its
inner-city neighbors
By Kirk Noonan
For Phillip Baugh, life used to be like riding a
rollercoaster blindfolded. Because of an insatiable drug addiction and years of
poor choices, he was never sure what a day would bring him. One moment he could
be on top of the world; the next he could be plummeting downhill. Drugs and
crime threw Baugh for a loop time and again.
But in late 1992 the fast living caught up with Baugh. He
was sent to a Southern California prison on a felony conviction. Baugh now says
his lockup was one of the best things that ever happened to him.
“It was a divine appointment,” he says of his incarceration.
“I was being set up by God.”
Part of the setup was a Christian prison counselor who got
Baugh talking about his past, the mistakes he had made, the people he had let
down and the Christian faith he had left as a child. As tears rolled down
Baugh’s cheeks, the counselor asked another inmate, who was at least 30 years
Baugh’s senior, to come into the room and pray.
“It moved me when the other inmate prayed,” Baugh, 41, says.
“I committed my life to Christ that day in the counselor’s office.”
According to Baugh he was immediately delivered from drugs
and alcohol.
Soon after, he began working in the prison’s chapel where he
was discipled by the chaplain and other inmates. The experience proved
formative and set Baugh on a path that would eventually lead to a
poverty-stricken section of Port Arthur, Texas, where he currently serves as
senior pastor of The Rock Community Outreach Center.
“God provided the way for our family to come here,” Baugh
says of his move to Texas from the Northwest three years ago. “But it wasn’t
easy. When we arrived we had a building with no people.”
Hurricane Katrina would help change that.
Ever since the church was started, Baugh has told his
burgeoning congregation of 65 that reaching into the community with Christ’s
message of love and hope is paramount.
“God wants the people that no one wants,” he says. “Because
of that, so do we.”
Making contact with those who are impoverished, drug
addicted or entangled in gangs and prostitution was made easier for Baugh in
the days after Katrina struck.
Knowing that aid would be a long time in coming to Port
Arthur, Baugh telephoned Convoy of Hope and asked for assistance.
“A truck full of cleaning supplies, water and food was
immediately dispatched to Port Arthur,” Michael Redmon, Convoy’s U.S. outreach
director, says. “It was the beginning of a great relationship.”
Within 48 hours the truck arrived at The Rock. With most of
his members reeling from hurricane damage, Baugh, his wife, Tiffany, their
teenaged daughter and two family members began distributing the food, water and
supplies to hundreds of people. The work was taxing and lasted from sunup to
sundown.
“At one point we got so tired I just called out to anyone in
the line to volunteer to help us pass things out,” Baugh recalls. “Five ladies
whom we had never met did. They stayed with us for almost an entire week.”
A few weeks later a team of volunteers consisting of members
from Convoy of Hope and a large religious organization descended on Baugh’s
church and parsonage to do repairs.
It was then that Baugh met Fory Vandeneinde, a Convoy of
Hope representative working Katrina relief efforts. Vandeneinde offered to send
truckloads of furniture that Baugh and his congregation could distribute to the
families of Port Arthur. Baugh readily accepted the offer. Since then, Convoy
of Hope has sent more than 18 truckloads of furniture donated by corporations
to the city for distribution.
Helping those in need fits perfectly with the church’s
mission statement, which reads in part, “Dedicated to the restoration of broken
lives.”
“I appreciate Convoy of Hope so much for giving us tools,”
Baugh says. “They have supplied us with the tools to reach this community with
love. We couldn’t do what we do without them.”
Though finances run thin almost every month and life in the
inner city can be challenging, the Baughs say they are in the center of God’s
will helping those in need.
“Ministering here to these people is like going back after myself
before I met Christ,” says Baugh. “Like many of the people here, I just needed
someone to come after me and tell me about Jesus.”
KIRK NOONAN is managing editor of Today’s Pentecostal
Evangel and blogs at Simple Plan (knoonan.agblogger.org).
E-mail your comments to tpe@ag.org.
