John, welcome back to 700 Club Interactive.

Well, thank you, Gordon.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for the invitation to come and for sharing what's

going on here with all your viewers.

Well, it's good to see you again.

This all started with the dream.

You were driving by a place and you just got an idea.

Tell us about it.

Well, it actually started three years

before I saw the hospital.

It started back, three years prior,

to seeing a school bus stop, right in the neighborhood where

I live.

And I saw elementary-aged kids getting on and off a school bus

at a motel.

That was the defining moment, because I

could tell families are living in this motel.

I needed to know what was going on.

It led to the acquisition of the hospital many years later.

Well, what was the first step then?

Because I think a lot of people are

watching saying I could never get a hospital.

I could never have a huge building like that.

So get us back to the beginning.

I always like how God starts.

He starts with very small seeds.

So what was the first thing you did?

The first thing, if you want to go back to the very beginning,

was my own personal walk with the Lord.

The moment in time where I was confronted personally,

with this realization.

That he, Jesus, is holding me personally

accountable for the people I see.

In other words, when I answer for the love and the life

that he's given me, I'll answer for what

I did or did not do with the people I personally see.

So that awareness, when I saw that school bus,

it wasn't a thing where it was disconnected from my heart.

So what led to this, was me loving the people I see.

And as I began to love them, I learned their story,

and we just showed up with some friends

and started providing restaurant-quality meals

for them.

Caring for them, hearing their stories for years

before we bought the hospital.

So we're all equipped, all of us,

are equipped to love our neighbor.

The Lord would not command us to love our neighbor

if we couldn't do it.

What do you say to people who have the problem of, OK, I

see the need.

I'm moved with compassion and the thought,

somebody ought to do something about that.

How do you take that thought into now I need to act?

Well, first of all, that whole somebody oughtta

is a key alarm for me that when I'm thinking that,

that somebody is probably me.

Because when I can say somebody oughtta,

that usually means I see a need, I

can connect the dot between a resource and a need,

and somebody oughtta is where you kind of dust your hands off

and push it away from you.

So when I hear myself thinking that, I stop, and I say wait

a minute, I am that somebody.

And so what I do practically, is when I see a need,

I can't run after every need that I see,

but here's what I do.

I have this habit of asking the Lord, Lord I see this need

and I hold it before him in prayer

and when I get that still, small voice that says to me, this one

you own it.

Then I run toward it with all the resources

that may happen to be in my pocket.

If it's $5, I give $5.

If I have 50,000, I give 50,000.

So I check in with Jesus on everything I see.

Not everything I see do I touch, but just

the ones he tells me to move toward.

Well, homelessness can be a hidden problem.

I don't think of Kansas City as a place

with rampant homelessness, but give us an idea.

How big is this problem nationwide?

Well, it's very big.

Because in every municipality of all

various sizes are these motels that

were built in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s,

and they're filled with families that fit this description.

They go to work every day.

They're all living in a one-room motel.

Their children are enrolled in your local schools.

And they're trapped, and they can't get out.

They want out.

But when they try to save the money to get out,

a child gets sick or a car breaks down.

There are families that fit this description in every city.

And so folks can show up and love on those families.

And the best way to love on them is

get to know them and listen to their story.

There's a lot of brokenness that led to them getting there.

It's easy to sit in judgment.

Like, well, gee why, would they live there?

They ought to get out.

But showing up and listening to their story

and having compassion will cause us to be more generous.

What are some of the ways that people can help you

in what you're doing?

Well, I would be most encouraged

if they'd love the people right there where they are,

where they live.

But if they would like to help us, what we've taken on

is huge.

I have five more units that are fully

furnished and ready to open.

We've turned away several families this week.

I need a little more funding.

Some partners that will help with a one-time contribution

to help us get enough money so I can

hire a couple more caseworkers.

They can also go to our website riverofrefuge.com.

But you know, Gordon, I have to say

that your donors were so generous to us

in the beginning.

When you gave us that gift, it has grown and grown and grown.

So thank you so much for what you and CBN has

done to help us.

John, thank you.

And thank you especially, for being Jesus to the people

that you saw.

When you saw all those elementary school

kids lining up to get on a bus, you

said I'm going to do something.

I'm going to do something very tangible

to help them, and so thank you for doing that.

It's wonderful.

Your story is absolutely encouraging to me.

I just love it.

Thank you Gordon.