Open House Ministries is looking for mission teams to come serve this summer. Volunteers will work with children and youth at Open House’s summer camp, and are needed specifically for the weeks of June 16-21 and July 7-12. Please e-mail engage@thefellowship.info if interested and click here to read more about volunteering with Open House Ministries.

The following article about Open House Ministries was featured in the most recent edition of the fellowship! magazine. Read below to learn more about the ministry and how you can help.

In 1992, Hurricane Andrew raked across the agricultural community of Homestead, Fla., leveling almost everything in its path. One thing even Andrew couldn’t erase was the engrained poverty that in some ways defines the southwest part of this city of approximately 62,000 people.

As soon as Andrew left, volunteers from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida moved in to southwest Homestead to help clean and rebuild. After the TV cameras and FEMA left and the scars on the landscape healed, the CBF of Florida volunteers remained.

Twenty-one years later, they’re still there. Along the way, their work shifted from repairing houses to the long-term challenge of repairing lives. They created a permanent platform – Open House Ministries – at the heart of this poorest neighborhood to provide programs for education, skill development, spiritual growth and more.

After two decades trying to break the cycle of poverty, has Open House Ministries made a difference?

One constant testimony that Open House is changing southwest Homestead is the shining smiles on a hundred or so faces – the young people who show up each week for after-school tutoring, computer training, art, athletics, worship, Bible study and more.

The sight of children playing, laughing, learning – and just being kids – is too often missing in this neighborhood, where children grow up too fast and innocence is lost to the harsh realities of drugs, crime and gangs. Forty-two percent of Homestead children live below the poverty line – more than double the state average – and the crime rate is two-and-a-half times the state average, according to government statistics.

“When I moved here nine years ago, people ran from their cars to their homes or businesses,” said Wanda Ashworth Valencia, executive director of Open House and one of CBF’s field personnel. “No one was outside, in the park or on the sidewalks. I would walk children home and pass by a group of people smoking pot or drinking. The neighborhood was owned by these forces of addiction and darkness.”

There are signs of progress. Though still high, the violent crime rate in Homestead dropped 41 percent between 2006 and 2010. Statistics for a particular neighborhood are hard to come by, but police say violent crime is down significantly in southwest Homestead.

The city’s high-school graduation rate last year jumped from 50 percent to 74 percent, Valencia said, in part because of a five-year concerted effort that involved Open House and other community groups.

“Slowly, I have seen [the residents] begin to take back the neighborhood,” she said. “Now families are at the park across the street, even at 8 or 9 p.m.”

Parents welcome the presence of Open House because “they know when their child goes there, they are safe,” said Amber Murray, 17, who grew up participating in the programs at Open House and is now a part-time staff member.

Local Methodist pastor Audrey Warren sees the impact of Open House most vividly in people like Amber – young leaders who have emerged from the program.

“You’re raising up leaders for Homestead, people who live their lives with a Christian ethic,” said Warren, pastor of nearby Branches United Methodist Church. The church’s youth hold an annual summer camp, and other events, jointly with the teens of Open House.

The volunteers and staff of the center always exude joy and confidence, she said, even though “some of them could be living pretty resentful, bitter lives because of their home lives or the way their families have been treated.”

Ray Johnson, coordinator for the CBF of Florida, said the proof of the ministry’s worth is in the changed lives.

“Through the years, I have watched small children grow into wonderful young adults and leaders,” said Johnson, who previously was a pastor in nearby Miami and still serves on the Open House board. “I have witnessed young teenagers being pulled into the love and grace of Open House and out of the violence of local gangs. I have seen families receive healthcare, children receive after-school tutoring [and] migrant families offered legal counsel. The hurting have been prayed for. The hungry have been fed. And the poor are being shown ways out of poverty’s cycles.”

Started as a partnership between the national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and CBF of Florida, Open House Ministries was one of the first ongoing projects of the Fellowship movement. CBF of Florida committed to build the 9,000-square-foot building, which would be large enough to provide space for a free health clinic and start-up groups that would work to meet the community’s needs. Built almost completely by volunteers, the bright yellow stucco building has occupied a prominent corner in southwest Homestead since opening in 2000. It’s a neutral location in a community that remains segregated along ethnic lines.

In a city where twice as many children live with one parent at home than those with two, the key to success is building strong relationships over time, according to Valencia.

“It’s chess, not checkers,” she said, noting that most of her staff and older volunteers grew up at Open House. “Young people need to know that you are going to be there through the years and through their struggles.”

Jovanny Alvarado, a 21-year-old Open House staffer, has learned that lesson too. Like Amber, he grew up in Open House and now is passing on what he learned to the newcomers who have come to trust him because of his constant encouragement and infectious smile.

“If there’s any advice I can share, why keep it inside?” said Joe, as he is known by the children.

“Probably the biggest blessing of the long-term investment in Homestead,” Valencia said, “is that students who grew up at Open House Ministries now serve as spiritual leaders in our community “They are the real catalyst for change. We see the change in them and in their families.”

By contributing writer Greg Warner