 |
|
Keri Gage, right, serves at the TML ministry center, the yellow building on the right, located in the heart of Overtown. Patricia Heys photo
|
MIAMI – In 2005, Lamar and Ashley lived through one of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit Miami. These young siblings, who lived in the Overtown community just north of downtown, were a few of the 6 million people left without electricity. But they were also left without a home.
Once a thriving neighborhood and center of black culture, Overtown is now the poorest community in the state of Florida. Lamar and Ashley already faced many challenges of living in poverty when hurricane Wilma hit and their government subsidized home was deemed uninhabitable. Police began knocking on the doors of their building early in the morning, informing families that they had to be out by noon.
"So often it is the people with the fewest resources, those living in poverty, who suffer the most when a disaster like a hurricane hits an area," said Keri Gage, one of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s field personnel serving in Miami. "Lamar and Ashley’s family were already struggling to afford basic necessities. They didn’t have the money to move nor did they have a place to go."
Gage who serves at Touching Miami with Love (TML), a ministry of the Fellowship and CBF of Florida located in Overtown, did what she could to help the families who had lost their homes. Along with other Fellowship field personnel working at TML, she converted the ministry center into storage areas so that displaced families would be able to store their belongings.
The displacement of Overtown families began in the 1960s when interstates 95 and 395 were built and dissected the vibrant neighborhood into quadrants. Now, instead of the restaurants, music venues, theaters and shops that made the community a mecca of black culture, government housing, vacant lots and empty warehouses dot the landscape of Overtown. The community is so isolated by the interstates that most pizza restaurants do not deliver in the neighborhood.
"The interstate system really dissected the neighborhood and created a vacuum," said Gage, who began serving at TML in 2002. "You go so many blocks and you run into an interstate. Then you go the other way and you run into another interstate. All the businesses have left the neighborhood – there are very few restaurants and shopping centers."
As downtown Miami continues to expand, housing for low-income families is replaced by commercial high rises. And as in the 1960s, those who can afford to move out of the neighborhood do, but the poor are forced to find even less acceptable housing.
TML provides a variety of services to the Overtown community – summer camps, after school programs, a Christmas store, tax services and assistance finding jobs, housing and social services. The center is a haven in the midst of a community where drug trafficking, prostitution, teenage pregnancy and gang related violence are common.
"This is a difficult community to work with, there’s violence and prostitution, but it’s where I call home," said Gage, a native of Fort Walton Beach, Fla. "I’ve learned a lot about Jesus’ ministry to the poor by ministering myself. I want to show the kids, and the families, here that they are loved and cared for in society."
To learn about partnership opportunities with TML or to schedule one of TML’s field personnel to speak at your church, call (800) 352-8741.
CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.