Mary Sheridan was supposed to spend the weekend at her class reunion. Instead she was sitting on the parking lot of the Scioto County Homeless Shelter serving food provided by the Matthew 25:35 Ministry out of Columbus, Ohio.
“I talked with (Homeless Shelter Director) Maureen (Cadogan) on several occasions, and it’s just sad,” Sheridan said. “I don’t know what happened. Here in Portsmouth, everybody used to reach out to everybody. Neighbors didn’t go hungry. Kids didn’t go unfed, and when I found out (Pastor) Steve (Fletcher) and Lana (Fletcher) were coming down here, I live in Columbus now and work for veterans and homelessness, I jumped in here with this.”
Matthew 25:35 reads – “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,”
The big truck with “Matthew 25:35” on the side had pulled up on the parking lot, and table after table of clothing was laid out for people to take, while Mike Meyers cooked up hamburgers and hot dogs.
“We came down last month at this time and this month we’re supporting the homeless shelter here,” Fletcher said. “We bring clothing, supplies, food. We want people to know about the homeless in this area.”
Fletcher said it is his desire to partner with other churches in this area to get them to do the same thing.
“I understand there are churches doing dinners and so forth, but from what I’ve been told, nobody’s really doing this kind of ministry,” Fletcher said. “We would love to partner with someone and help them get started in this kind of ministry. We’ll come down any time we can hook up with somebody.”
Fletcher said the food and clothing come by way of donations to the Matthew 25:35 Ministry.
“We have a small mission in downtown Columbus. We’re right in the middle of all the drug epidemic, the heroin, the prostitution, the gangs and the homeless,” Fletcher said. “We are down in the ‘bottoms’ is what they call it. It’s a depressed area and there’s a lot of homeless there.”
Fletcher said he doesn’t second-guess having the ministry placed in that neighborhood.
“That’s exactly where God put us,” Fletcher said. “There’s a need for stuff and there’s a need for food. But also we bring the spiritual together with it. We’ve got prayer requests from people. We’ve prayed with people. We’ve not only fed them physically but we have fed them spiritually and that hope – that lost hope – that they have in the situation they’re in, that’s where they need to find Jesus.”
Matthew 25:35 Ministry can be reached at www.matt2535ministry.com, by email at [email protected], or by calling Fletcher at 614-778-4778.
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