Contact 614 Chattanooga
Leaders: Ashley and Elizabeth Lingo
Address: 800 McCallie Ave. Chattanooga, TN 37403
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Email: ashley_lingo@uss.salvationarmy.org and beth_lingo@uss.salvationarmy.org
Area Website: www.salvationarmysouth.org/TENN.htm
Phone: 423.693.7863 and
423.756.1023-ext. 1137
By Lee Morest (territorial character-building and camping director)
The setting is a corps that is set up in a café style. Pews have been moved to the side and round tables fill the space. In the back of the sanctuary, coffee, juices and snacks are available. About 25-30 homeless people fill the tables and pews that line the walls. Some sleep, some play board games or socialize, while others sit and appear to be just thinking. The atmosphere is calm, peaceful, safe and upbeat. Music fills the white noise of voices either through the DVD playing via the large TV or by someone playing the piano. They are fed the Word of God through a short devotion which today I had opportunity to lead.
The name of the café is Re-Create. The aim of this young and unique ministry, headed by Cory and Laura Harrison, is to provide a haven of rest and safety for homeless people in Chattanooga, Tenn. The ministry is under the overall command of Majors James and Beverly Lawrence, area commander and women’s ministries coordinator.
At one of the tables a young couple talks. She is looking at a buyer’s guide for houses, perhaps dreaming of that day she owns her home. I ask them how they were doing. He said, “I’d be doing better if I had some work.” On stage an elderly man sings “Amazing Grace.” With a coffee in one hand he sings and dances around the stage. Others soon join him in song. As the music continues one gentleman bows his head in whispered song and prayer.
On a pew across the room, a woman sleeps wrapped in a blue blanket. She spent the previous night sleeping on the hard pavement just outside the doors. I am told that this could be a breakthrough for her – prior to this morning she would not even enter the building. Until this morning she felt safer sleeping outside these doors. Now she sleeps peacefully inside.
Amid the laughing, songs, conversations, prayers, and games, ministry is all about. Needs are being met on all levels. Laura Harrison travels from table to table getting personal information and filling out clothing vouchers meeting personal needs, while others pray, listen and encourage those around us.
I ask questions, and then I just listen. Some say they are happy to finally have a place to belong. They are grateful to have a place that is comfortable, safe and where you can just think. They told me there are so many distractions “out there.” The Re-Create Café is a place of hope where many have lost or are on the brink of losing faith in all things. They say that being homeless wears you down and that many eventually lose hope in all things, including God, themselves and humanity.
The people who have found this place of hope say that they are tired of watching life pass them by. They are tired of being on the outskirts of society, tired of not having a “space” to call there own. They are tired of living without purpose and in the shadows of society. This place represents hope for them – hope for renewed purpose and a chance to reunite with humanity. Here they find hope that God is alive and that He can be their light as they move out from society’s shadows.
Leaders from within this little community of homeless people have taken responsibility for what is taking place. In some other places, pastors dance and sing to just get a couple of hands to volunteer. Yet this community cares and serves one another with what little they have – probably to a greater extent than some of us with all of our overflow and comforts. Perhaps being at rock bottom for so long makes one more sensitive to the “little” things. Maybe they feel a deeper sense of ownership. I have been told by one that the main reason is that they feel cared for.
Growth and expansion is planned for the fledgling ministry. Plans include the establishment of a school that will provide some basic work force skills (i.e. computer skills, resume building, and interview skills) and Bible classes.
