Here We Go!

How do I even begin this introductory blog? I wish you all could have been walking through the past 3 years with me and see how this came to be. Maybe in future pieces I will delve deeper into it. Trust me it's been a work that only God Himself could have orchestrated. Only God could have brought you to abandoned, boarded up buildings and have you pray over them. Lead you, through a random situation, to the owner of said buildings. Get you into the buildings and then have all four buildings, that have been poured over in prayer, donated to you to use to reach the people of your city. That's exactly what He did for us. My husband and I (along with 2 other couples) began a non-profit (ReBUILD) in Huntington, West Virginia to reach the least reached of our city. We want to reach out in a very simple way: LOVE THEM LIKE JESUS LOVED! A team has been brought together (again completely by God) to dive head first into this work. We are all flawed human beings, who are no where near perfect, but who love Jesus and want to pour out ourselves on loving others. Our mission through this blog is make others aware of the needs in our city. We have extremely high rates of drug use, drug overdoses, Hepatitis C and  babies born addicted to drugs. It's easy to get frustrated and judge others, but they are people too. Jesus died for them just like He did for EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON. And they need to be loved just like everyone else does. I don't want others judging me for my sin, so what business of mine is it to judge anyone else.  

We are each going to be writing and sharing who we are and what we do. You will hear from Kayla (ReBUILD Advocate), Becky (ReBUILD Children's Director) and Kayla (ReBUILD Women's Growth & Development Director). These women are very near and dear to my heart. I can't wait for you to meet each of them. 

Let me start the introductions with myself. I am Renee. I am legally the president of ReBUILD, but that title makes me really uncomfortable because all I really want to do is love on people. My man (Paul) has been beside me for 25 years! That is a freaking long time! We've got three adult children (how the heck did that happen). Meg (& Mike), Jake (& Tori) and Sydney. We also have two more that God has placed in our home right now. We are bit on the spicy side and sometimes a little inappropriate. Whatever we do, we do loudly and passionately. We should definitely come with a warning. My life has been all about the man and the kids (and the bakery that I owned and operated for a year). About 3 years ago I got involved in street ministry. I'm ashamed to say that I've lived in this city all but about a year of my life and I had no idea what was going on 20 minutes from my house. You see, when my kids were growing up we did what we were "supposed" to do. We went to church three times a week and that's it. Everything in our lives was centered around a building. That is all well and good. My kids all love Jesus and are actively involved in local churches, but the part that we missed was that while we were doing our church thing and living in our nice, comfy houses there was a city falling apart. That meant that people were falling apart and I was doing nothing to help them. My life was forever changed the day I first walked the streets handing out food. I could no longer pretend that everything was ok. It was definitely NOT ok! People were hurting and and just needed to be loved. They were not going to come to a church building because they've been judged and hurt by those church people. They were looked down upon and treated like their lives didn't matter. So I (dragging along my poor husband, who now is as passionate as I am) decided to go to them. Go spend time with them. Get to know them. Show them that just because we are Christians and go to a church building doesn't mean that we are without sin. I am a self-proclaimed disaster most of the time. I am anxiety and fear ridden. I've had to give those sins to Jesus over and over again. I am a shopping addict. It's caused more problems then I can write right now. I am working now to leave that behind along with the anxiety and fear. I am not flawless. I will not wear a mask in church or anywhere else. What I will do is use my imperfections to try and show that we all struggle, but we are all worthy of love! What I will NOT do is judge or hate on anyone....because LOVE > hate ALWAYS!!! 

Thanks for coming on this journey with us! It's the scariest thing I've, personally, ever done. But I love my city and I love our people and I am ready to share that love!