Darlington church starts shower ministry
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, regardless of their situation in life. Several churches in Darlington are working to do just that with a simple act: opening up showers to people who don’t have access to one.
Showering may not seem like a luxury but for someone who has fallen on hard times it might be something they simply are not able to do. The Shower Ministry at Trinity United Methodist Church opens August 7.
Angie Godbold, Annette Martin, Linda Brunson and Rev. Chris Lollis have been working together to get the ministry up and running.
“It is just soap and water but some people don’t have that,” Godbold said. “It is open to anyone who is homeless but also to members of the community who may not have running water in there home. It is not just for one group of people; it is an outreach to all.
Rev. Lollis said that during volunteer training, the group discussed the myriad of situations that someone who takes advantage of the ministry might be experiencing.
“In our training group we talked about the fact that it may be a situation where they have running water in their kitchen but they have plumbing problems and don’t have water in the bathroom or they may not have hot water,” Lollis said. “This will be a way for them to get a hot shower. In the heat that we have now, getting a nice shower will just make you feel better. We hope that folks can come, get a shower and leave feeling refreshed.”
Lollis said that this ministry may lead to other opportunities for his church.
“This may be a way that we can engage those folks and through this we could end up doing greater mission work where we are doing plumbing, giving plumbing assistance to folks, so that they can get water in their bathroom and not have to utilize this ministry,” Lollis said. “We are hoping that this will grow into something greater than it is but this is one way we can start.”
Toiletries will be provided at the church. Volunteers are already being lined up to make the shower hours work smoothly.
“Everything that they will need will be here,” Godbold said. “All of that had been donated. We are working on a rotation now for volunteers but the more volunteers we have, the less burden there is on the ones you have. There are opportunities whether you want to do that every week or once a month; it is whatever fits for those who are interested.”
A background check will be completed on each volunteer, a safety precaution for everyone involved.
Brunson said that Rev. Lollis has been challenging his congregation to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ and this is a great way to do it. Lollis said he has been pleased to see the project go from an idea to being just weeks away from opening to the public.
“I think it is great,” Lollis said. “We had training and it was just great energy to be able to do something. Often times we sit around and talk and we can talk something to death and nothing ever comes to fruition. It is exciting for me to see something, in a short period of time, come to fruition. It has just been a few months.”
Godbold said that she firmly believes that it was God who gave her the idea.
“When I sit back and look, from the original idea, it was very gently lined up and I know that God did that,” Godbold said. “It has just been everyone following his lead and he has put it together in the perfect path. I won’t say that it has been easy, it hasn’t been easy as far as getting the work done, but the path that he lined up was easy, very smooth. This incredible congregation here (at Trinity) that I’ve interacted with who are open to this idea, are very welcoming and they want this. We had people from a lot of local churches at the volunteer training meeting.”
Showers will be open at the Trinity United Methodist Church Youth building on Orange Street on Monday from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. and Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Anyone interested in being a volunteer can contact Angie Godbold. Send an email to askgodbold@yahoo.com or call 843-758-0472.