| Books by Richard Close |
| “Inside…The Gospel Rescue Mission”
Purchase on Amazon  Inside Gospel Rescue Missions Book “Inside Gospel Rescue Missions” Book: This rare book takes us deep inside the plight of America’s poor, the breathtaking transformation and hard work that takes place inside America Gospel Rescue Missions. In these images and writings of mission life, you will enter into a world you never thought possible. This book will break your heart and then fill it with faith that devoted Christians still heal and save souls every day. Available soon on Amazon.com or by contact us at: chrysaliscamp@aol.com. |
Forward From the Book “Inside the Gospel Rescue Mission”
It is another one of those 4 AM wake ups. “The time has come to return. Time to give back to those who love you.” When you obey the Father, it is always amazing to see what His will unfolds.
In the late fall of 2003, I lost everything in the wreckage of attorneys, abuse and my own arrogance. When there was no viable place to turn to, Rev. Wilcox of the Bridgeport Gospel Rescue Mission took this shattered man in and saved his life. While there were no drug addictions involved, I am nothing special. America’s Gospel Missions help millions of Americans every day across the country.
It’s about time someone told the real story of what goes on inside these blessed missions. It’s about the mercy, grace, tough love, transformation and very hard work. That is the purpose of this book. The statistics I will leave for others to tell.
In some ways, missions are about poverty, social injustice, personal responsibility and a hundred other catch phrases that blind us of what is really happening inside. Yet what really goes on is one of the most difficult and miraculous processes imaginable.
A human crushed by life faces off with His Creator.
What takes place after that staggers the imagination and challenges our deepest values.
I pray in the depths of my heart that these images and poems will help you understand the life inside these amazing missions and the people who volunteer and work there. I pray that you will see the poor from a compassionate light and understand why Jesus chooses to live with the poor and do His ministry among them.
They serve over 32,000 meals a month
Its not their fault
Children of the Hood
It takes years of meanness to warp the innocent love of a child.
Each evening
The mission kitchen truck
goes into the hood
with food and clothes
One time it was
a nasty freezing night
when a darling
eight year old, Puerto Rican girl
in pink fuzzy slippers
brown bathrobe
came to our window
With an embarrassed
but sweetest voice
she asks for nine dinners… That’s right, nine!
One of three powerful big men
in the truck asked her
“Why don’t your parents come down?”
after a shy moment
She softly says, “It’s too cold.”
We plead to help her
but are rebuffed
without a complaint, she will serve her parents
We watch her little body
carrying the nine plastic bags
through the snow
under the dirty street lamps
into the project’s shadows
One who had done serious time says,
“We could easily follow her up
and teach them all a big lesson”
“Easily,” says another
But God will not let their hearts do it
So when all the food was gone
we stood in the ice
and prayed
against the dark brick towers
for her
and her foolish parents
Our drive home
was filled with dreadful silence
There are millions
just like her
The innocent children
who once loved their parents so openly
and the hood that abused them
so cruelly
You could watch
the memories of the men
whose father abandoned them
or of taking care of addicted mothers
All those stolen childhoods
Yet we are here in this mobile kitchen
offering food, mercy and Jesus
And that she will remember
when she grows old
May the Lord Bless
and protect the poor children
May our Father send more servants
to save them
