It is a beautiful Saturday morning in New Orleans, and outside the Baptist Friendship House, near the French Quarter section of the city, Dan Wuerddan kneels in front of a basketball backboard he is assembling.
A few minutes later, he climbs into the bed of his pickup truck and begins to attach the backboard to the basketball pole already in the ground.
Wuerddan easily is tall enough for the job — he played for the St. John’s Red Storm, a major college basketball program.
Now he is a scout for the New Orleans Hornets professional basketball team. His ultimate goal is to coach.
On this day, however, he assembles the basketball goal for someone else — children and youth who participate in Friendship House programs.
His effort is just a part of an overall Hornets project at the New Orleans ministry. The team recently provided resources — and personnel — to renovate the ministry facility operated by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board (NAMB).
Renovating project
By the time the project was completed in late May, the ministry featured renovated bedrooms for homeless women and children in need of shelter, a renovated dining room and a gymnasium redone to provide meeting space for regular training and education classes.
The project included new paint on walls, new flooring and new furniture.
All in all, the Hornets donated more than $21,000 in materials and countless hours of labor, said Kay Bennett, director of the Friendship House. On the first day of the project, 28 people showed up to work, followed by 24 on the second day.
For two weeks afterward, four or five people from the Hornets organization traveled to the ministry site each day to put final touches on the project.
How did the National Basketball Association team match up with the Friendship House for the effort?
It began with the visit of a group of women from First Baptist Church, New Orleans — a group that included Denise Shinn. The group went to the center to cut soup labels for the ministry. While there, Shinn was introduced to the work.
“I quickly saw that it’s a great, great home for desperate women,” Shinn said.
She also saw the needs of the ministry — and decided to do something about it. That is where the Hornets came into play. Shinn’s husband, George, owns the team — and his wife was convinced this was a perfect project for the club.
The commitment was made for the Hornets organization to undertake — and underwrite — the renovation project.
“Everybody just came together and donated their time,” Shinn explained. “It’s been just such a transformation. It’s just so bright and happy and cheery. It’s more like a home.”
Shinn talked about the project — and its results — in excited fashion. “I know the Lord led me there,” she said.
For that matter, the Lord also led her and her husband to First, New Orleans, she added. George Shinn is a longtime Baptist, while his wife grew up a Methodist.
When the couple arrived in New Orleans with the Hornets a few years ago, they began visiting churches, everything from Presbyterian to Methodist.
“Then, we visited First Baptist Church and truly fell in love with the church family and pastor (David) Crosby,” Shinn explained. “We just both knew that was where we belonged.
Meeting needs with love
“So, I was baptized into the church. I am a Baptist now … It just makes you feel good to be part of a church family.”
Shinn said the Friendship House effort was perfect for the Hornets organization. “It was a great opportunity for employees to get to know each other,” she said. “They really enjoyed it.”
Meanwhile Bennett talked just as excitedly about the impact of the project on the ministry.
“We could not have done this on our own, and I don’t know too many churches that could have provided this kind of materials and labor,” she noted.
“People who see it now just cannot believe it. They are so excited.”
Bennett is excited because of the impetus it gives the ongoing ministry of the Friendship House.
For 61 years, the ministry has focused on an encompassing mission purpose — to meet the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of homeless women and children of New Orleans with love.
The ongoing ministry involves a host of offerings, including:
- Emergency aid through such things as a ministry clothes closet, food distribution, rent/utility assistance and help with baby supplies for women.
- Job-readiness training for women, including help in developing skills, preparing resumés, applying and interviewing for jobs and setting vocational goals.
- Health education through such things as nutrition classes, health screenings and fairs, health counseling, wellness programs and distribution of hygiene items.
- Education help through such things as literacy training, computer labs, GED preparation and tutoring and training in life skills and parenting.
- Transitional housing through the providing of shelter and programs to help women develop needed life skills.
Of course, an overarching focus is spiritual growth. To that end, the ministry offers regular Bible and discipleship studies, counseling services and chapel services.
It also distributes Bibles and other Christian literature and conducts after-school and summer programs for kids. “We touch on a little bit of everything,” Bennett explained.
The transitional housing program, however, is a key ministry. It features 24 beds for homeless women and children. Usually the women are fleeing abusive situations — sometimes from another state even — and end up staying at the Friendship House for two to five months.
During that time, ministry workers get the children placed in school or day care, then begin working to help the mother develop employment and life skills.
The ministry helps find employment and housing for the women and provides them an ongoing mentoring program.
Bennett said several of the women helped by the ministry now have come to give back to the program in some way.
Meanwhile Bennett and her co-workers continue to explore ways they can minister to their community.
They are conducting a pilot program known as Project H.O.P.E. — Helping Others Prepare for life by Equipping them with knowledge and practical skills. During a four-week period, some 30 girls ages 11–18 are attending the summer program, where they focus on developing various self-esteem and life skills.
The ministry also conducts a weekly Street Reach to homeless persons.
Just blocks from the Friendship House, as many as 200 homeless persons gather at night near a seawall.
Each Thursday night, workers and local church volunteers walk down to the site, where they distribute coffee and other items — and share the gospel. “There’s always an opportunity there,” Bennett said.
The ministry also hosts an annual Back-to-School Party, at which 300 or more backpacks of school supplies are distributed to area children.
This year’s party was Aug. 6, but the ministry continually seeks donated backpacks and supplies.
Such help always is needed, Bennett acknowledged. NAMB provides funds for her salary and some necessities. Operating funds, however, come through donations each year, making finances a constant need.
Volunteers are needed as well — from local churches that can supply cooks or workers for such efforts as Street Reach to out-of-state teams that wish to travel to the ministry and stay at the ministry site while engaging in various efforts.
“And of course, everybody can help out through prayer,” Bennett noted.
Offering lasting hope
Meanwhile Bennett and her co-workers will continue to offer the kind of lasting hope and care that she heard one ministry participant acknowledge recently.
The woman had arrived for a ministry program, only to see the work performed by the Hornets to renovate the site.
“I heard her talking about what had been done,” Bennett recalled. “And she said, ‘They did all this for us?’ And it just brought tears to my eyes.
“What a great way to let people know they are cared for.” (BP)
Share with others: