ABOUT
Patrick and Shelley Porter, your podcast hosts are committed to sharing the Gospel through digital media and radio using medium wave AM prime time radio between 7 PM and 12 midnight broadcasting to Eastern and Central Europe.
We will be broadcasting via short-wave radio to SE Asia and Africa as well as domestic broadcasting in the US vis Podcast sndication on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Google Podcsts, Spotify, Sound Coud, Twitter, Facebook, and more.
About Patrick and Shelley. Patrick and Shelley have been in some form of ministry for 7 years. They began thier ministry opportunities in Orlando, Florida and answered a call to the Western North Carolina Mountains. Upon arriving in the mountains they started as worship leaders for a church in Maggie Valley. They then served as worship leaders for a ministry in Waynesville.
They saw the enormous opportunity to reach this local area as it is listed as one of the nation’s top opioid prescriptions abused regions. Also, there’s been much talk about drugs in Appalachia, particularly as opioids — first prescription pills, then heroin and its much deadlier cousin, fentanyl — tore through already distressed mountain communities. But even as state and federal agencies set their sights and budgets on ways to combat the opioid epidemic, another drug is wreaking havoc in Western North Carolina: methamphetamine. A stimulant that rose to national infamy in the 1990s and early 2000s, meth has been part of life here for years. THE METHAMPHETAMINE EPIDEMIC HAS PLAGUED SMALL COMMUNITIES IN WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA FOR YEARS.
With the drug problem in Western North Carolina homelessness is a huge problem. Haywood County, NC is one of the larges homeless areas in the WNC region.
Patrick and Shelley became involved with the local homeless shelter, Pathways and then helped plant a new church with it’s congregation hosting children and families from local poverty sticken neighborhoods in the area.
Shelley Porter completed her education and received her Chaplain’s license and began a jain ministry preaching to the inmates at the Haywood County jail.
Patrick and Shelley opened a Foodbank under the 501c3 umbrella of ACTS International for Christain musicians and artists in ministry. This is s when Mountain Haven Ministries- ACTS INTL was born. Their food bank quickly moved them into a partnership with a church where they opened a full day shelter to get drug addicts and homeless off the streets.
It was wonderful how local ministries and towns people took notice of what was happening in Waynesville, NC.
The local shelter Pathways Center required the homeless to be out of the facility all day. They were supposed to be looking for employment. Patrick and Shelley found a hole in the system. During the day the homelesss were mostly those who have a criminal past, or have recently been relased from the Haywood County jail and remain in the area for probation, low income mountain housing vouchers and many area ministries.
Patrick and Shelley discovered these people were not looking for help or employment during the day. They were looking for opportunities to get drugs and get in more trouble. This is what prompted the “Homeless Day Shelter” to help keep them off the streets.
Patrick and Shelley also discovered that most of these people were freezing during the frigid snow in the winter. They began providing expensive fuel oil for the building they were donated so they could provide a warm place, supervision, activities, transportation to medical and legal court appointments. They provided meals and spiritual guidance during this day program.
They continued their ministry to the homeless and drug-addicted for five years until they followed their call back to Orlando, Florida to continue in the music and worship ministry.
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