We are thankful that we have the freedom to share the gospel without fear and share it openly to the homeless of our area. We had a good turnout of volunteers who were willing to come out despite the rain the night before and the possibility of muddy conditions. We trust that God's word will not return void and we ask that the Lord would bless our efforts with many who would follow the Lord in repentance and faith.

We were thankful to have several from Berkeley who are with Imago Dei join us during this last outreach. A year ago, they sent several volunteers to observe how we conduct our homeless outreaches to get ideas for their ministry. It was a pleasure to have them join us again. We are blessed by their commitment to minister to the homeless in Berkeley as well as the homeless here in Contra Costa County.

We had another wonderful group of volunteers whose desire is to be a part of front line gospel ministry. God placed folks in our path who were open to gospel conversations and prayer. It's our prayer that those we encountered would consider what was shared and be moved to genuine saving faith. We are confident in God's word is powerful, that he does supernatural work in the hearts of the lost. Would you please join us in prayer that God would cause many that we spoke with to embrace saving faith and for those with addictive behavior to become free with the Lord's help?

It's our continuing prayer that more would come to know God personally and for those who say they are Christians would live out their faith.  By the grace of God as stewards of what He provides we trust the Lord our efforts aren't wasted. We know that God through his word has the power to transform lives. We praise the Lord that our team distributed seven English language Bibles, one Spanish Bible, and eight "Freedom from Addiction" books during this last outreach.

We had a packed house last Saturday when five staff members from Bay Area Rescue Mission joined us on our last outreach. With the addition of these brothers in Christ it enabled us to send five teams throughout the county which facilitated increased gospel conversations. Thank you for your prayers for our ministry!

This world is not our home but God blesses us greatly by providing us as individuals with homes. Even though the homeless in our area don't have traditional places to live, they often find a part of town that becomes familiar and where there is a sense of attachment. Many of our homeless friends are facing an order from various cities to vacate their spots this week. We pray for them as they are considering where to settle. We pray that in their fear, and uncertainty that they would turn to Jesus for help, first in repentance. We continually pray they find satisfaction in Christ rather than in substances. We pray for hearts of transformation by God's word. We pray that we will stay faithful to the gospel and faithful to serve the homeless with compassion and truth.

Temperatures are still high during our Saturday outreach events. We've kept on with our offer of cold brew coffee to folks rather than hot cups of coffee and it continues to be appreciated. On this last outreach we gave out: 9 English Bibles, 1 in Spanish, and 2 addiction books. Occasionally we have an outreach that is a little light on the photos and this last Saturday was one of those. But we are thankful for the depth of conversations that the Lord allowed and the connections made. We continue to be grateful that we can remain faithful to this gospel ministry. Although this report is short, we still appreciate your prayers for those named here. 

The ministry is still going strong and we are thankful for our faithful volunteers who continue to serve even on hot summer days. We sent teams into North and Central Concord, Martinez, and Vallejo and we had one Bible study participant, Mark who joined us for his second Bible study. We were able to distribute 14 English Bibles and 3 Addiction books: 'Cross Talking, a daily gospel for transforming addicts.' We are thankful for many extensive gospel conversations where the Word was shared. Praying for the Lord to bring clear fruit.

We are thankful for the efforts and time of a Sophmore Girl's Discipleship Group who made serving our ministry one of their summer outreach activities. Pictured here they are making lunches for the homeless that we distributed on this last outreach. They were sweet enough to prepare 40 lunches with 40 handwritten notes and Bible verses that were included.

Hope680 is moving forward with a plan to get several folks from our outreach team certified to be able to counsel people through their substance addiction. The program we will be using is called, Commissioned Addictions Biblical Counselor Training. It's a training program offered through 'The Addiction Connection.'

We are asking for a continued need for monthly packed lunches that are distributed during our outreaches. We know schedules change during the course of a year so we have an ebb and flow of lunch-packing volunteers. Of late there has been a larger gap in this area of our ministry.

We are continuing our format of highlighting a couple of key stories from our outreach. Nevertheless we are giving names of people we interacted with on Saturday and ask you to please lift them up in prayer. Those names can be found at the bottom of this report. Again, thank you for your continued prayer for all aspects of this ministry.

We experienced a homeless death in a highly personal way this weekend. One of our teams arrived first on the scene after Wanda's passing. Her tent mate Tray believes it was due to Fentanyl.

We had a packed house during this last outreach and were thankful for many who took part in this gospel ministry. We are also thankful for those who filled the need for lunches to be distributed as part of our outreach. This has continued to be one of the biggest tools for gospel conversations. It can be very difficult to engage someone in meaningful conversation when they are too hungry to focus. A huge thank you to those of you who serve our ministry in this way.

Life on the street is physically taxing. Many folks don't last long, either because of the hardened conditions or from their days of substance abuse. On this outreach, we learned that two of our homeless community died in the last two weeks, John and Theone (pictured above). We had many months of sharing the gospel with these folks but we don't believe that either made a decision for Christ prior to their passing.

It's officially Spring and we've been busy here at Hope680. With Palm Sunday and Easter rapidly approaching we've condensed our prayer email imparting the highlights. Please join us in lifting these individuals up to the Lord in prayer. May the seriousness and joy of the season resonate with each one as they are faced with the truth of Christ's death and resurrection.

We are so thankful to everyone who participated in our Second Annual Walkathon Fundraiser on Saturday, March 9th, 2024! We had a wonderful morning together in fellowship raising money for gospel proclamation work.

Thank you for your faithful prayers for our ministry. The Lord was kind to stop the rain while we were out ministering to the homeless. This allowed us to have better conversations with those we encountered. It's our desire to see people find freedom from the bondage of sin and despair and turn to Jesus. Their need can sometimes be overwhelming but we know God is greater.

It was raining during our last outreach on Saturday, February 17th. We find that usually means many of the homeless can be hesitant to come out of their tents, so we generally see fewer people. We prayed in advance that we would have more significant conversations with those we did speak to. God was kind to provide several great gospel conversations. Thank you for your faithfulness to lift the homeless of Contra Costa County up to the Lord in prayer.

For our latest outreach, we had a great turnout of volunteers. Teams were sent to Central and North Concord, Martinez, and an exploratory trip as far as Vallejo. The Lord was kind providing some great conversations with several people. There were moments we witnessed the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of people, softened towards us and the gospel. Thank you for praying for our front-line ministry! Continue to pray the seeds planted will find good soil.