Faith Chapel Mennonite Shelter houses Los Angeles' homeless

Mennonite Central Committee
Friday, 8 December 2000

"You see those beautiful downtown lights?" asks pastor Chuwang Pam. We head from the freeway toward downtown Los Angeles. "At the bottom of those high rise buildings is Skid Row. You wonít believe this is America," he says.

Los Angeles' Skid Row covers about 10 square blocks in the heart of the city. At night, large cardboard boxes literally line the streets as more than 15,000 people with no other place to call home gather to sleep at the foot of corporate Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County has more than 100,000 homeless people. The city is known both as the first "third world" city in the United States and as the worldís future financial capital.

People of all nationalities and backgrounds here are homeless. Some are trapped by drug addictions, others just couldnít keep up with rent payments. Women and children are now the fastest-growing segment of Los Angeles' homeless population.

An unemployed person may receive as little as $225 monthly from the government, explains Pam, and even the cheapest hotels in Skid Row charge $25 a night. Add food, and one monthís check can easily run out in a single week.

So Pamís congregation, Los Angeles Faith Chapel, opened a shelter for the homeless last year. "It was just based on compassion," he says. "People were coming to our church who didnít have food or a home. We started feeding them, then we started housing them."

The church-run Faith Chapel Mennonite Shelter (also known as L.A. Sober Living Home) now provides up to 14 people with food and a place to sleep. The shelter charges $200 per month, and residents are required to attend worship services and abstain from drugs and alcohol. The goal of this shelter, explains Pam, is to provide both spiritual and physical rehabilitation.

"First you minister to peopleís needs, then you offer them the Word," says Grace Pam, Chuwangís wife, who works as a support person for shelter residents. "Success stories can happen," she says, "when you remind people that God is ready and willing to direct them."

Wilma Burns, 63, is the shelterís designated "housemom," cleaning and cooking two daily meals. At one time homeless, Burns says she prayed for the day when she could settle in somewhere. She learned of the new shelter through attending Los Angeles Faith Chapel, and saw it as the perfect opportunity. "Itís my ministry," she says.

Since first meeting as five members in 1996, the Los Angeles Faith Chapel congregation, now numbering around 100, has been ministering in many ways to Los Angeles' poor. Members distribute donated food and clothing, provide a community fellowship meal on Sundays and hold weekly intercessory prayer meetings. "The Bible says that God is always looking for people to stand in the gap," says Chuwang Pam.

Through a grant from MCC, the congregation purchased a van for the shelter that pastor Pam now drives through Skid Row every Sunday, calling "Church van! Church van!" He sometimes makes two trips with the 16-passenger van, bringing people to Faith Chapel for worship and a meal.

Pam never dreamed he would be a Mennonite pastor. He first came to California in 1977 to study film production in Hollywood. After graduating, he returned to his home country, Nigeria.

A few years later he received his call to the ministry, and when the couple returned to Los Angeles in 1994, it was to minister.

A Mennonite friend introduced Pam to the Center for Anabaptist Learning (CAL) in Pasadena. Intrigued, Pam participated in CALís three-month course on Anabaptism and was later ordained in the Mennonite church. He now serves as through MCCís Local Service Worker program as CALís associate for African and African American ministries.

Most congregations CAL assists are small, international first-generation churches. Church leaders come to CAL with questions about how to initiate neighborhood ministries, how to write grants, how to connect recent immigrants with local services. The center, supported by MCC, equips congregations for these ministries. CAL recently helped Los Angeles Faith Chapel obtain a loan to open a second shelter in 2001.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org