Now, as the director and pastor of the New Life Mission on Henry Street, Gaines makes sure that the 17,000 people who pass through its doors each year are given what they need, whether it’s food, clothes, medical care or love.
Especially love.
“We see all kinds of people from all walks of life,” he said, “everything from government officials to business executives to church members to the down and out.”
Gaines sees himself as a sort of facilitator for the Lord. He doesn’t like to tell people what to do, but rather finds out what their gifts are and helps them apply them to do God’s work at the mission.
“We have this idea that each and every person has a purpose that God has brought to us, and whatever it is you want to do, we will partner with you,” he said. “I have 145 full-time volunteers, which means someone who is willing to come in here regularly whether it’s one day a month or six days a week.”
So in addition to the lunch kitchen that serves about 200 hot meals each day six days a week and box lunches on Sunday, a pregnancy clinic where women can come for free pre- and post-natal care, a clothes closet and a food pantry, people can also come in for a haircut or a blood pressure check.
“When someone comes in and wants to volunteer, I ask them what they want to do,” he said. “I don’t tell them they have to start out working in the kitchen. God led them here to do something and I let them take ownership of it.”
These things are under his umbrella, he said and admitted that sometimes he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s more at ease helping unload a truck or cleaning the bathrooms than he is at making executive decisions.
Gaines grew up in the Southern Baptist tradition, where “if it was fun, it was a sin,” in Monterey, Ky. (population 167), a rural river town where people farmed or worked in the distilleries or, being close to the state capitol, the government.
“When I became a Christian at 14, I knew I was called to the ministry,” he said, “but my gifts were not as a pastor. So I hid in the church. I took every job the church had to keep myself out of the ministry.”
He worked as an engineer for 35 years while working with youth groups in the church, and he started to come around at a camp where he was peppered with wondering and difficult questions from his young charges.
Or as he puts it: “God ate my lunch.”
“I came back from that and my wife and I stood before the church and said we’d devote ourselves to the ministry,” he said. “I was making $80,000 a year, but I was totally unhappy. And I was tired of fighting.”
So at 48 years old, he quit his job and enrolled in the Clear Creek Baptist Bible College, hoping that he’d find a nice, cushy job as a youth minister somewhere, like a camp in Missouri where he could help kids play games and go horseback riding. God, however, had other ideas.
“I called all kinds of places that needed youth ministers, but God just kept shutting those doors on me,” he said. Then a friend called Gaines and told him about the mission in Hamilton, Ohio.
“I told him he was crazy,” Gaines said.
“I didn’t know anything about cross-culture, race or anything about the inner-city,” he said. “When I crossed the Ohio River, I felt like I was going on a foreign mission.”
The New Life Baptist Mission got its start in the early 1960s as the Southeast Chapel, which merged with the New Life Mission Baptist Chapel in 1969.
During the ‘70s, the church started reaching out to the community with a basket ministry, handing out food and clothing around the holidays, and eventually started serving lunches.
By the time Gaines and his wife came to Hamilton in 2002, the original building, erected in 1850, had become dilapidated.
“When I first looked at the place, I thought that it didn’t represent my God,” he said. “But God taught me how to love people no matter what. The day I came in here and gave some clothing to a young family, I looked that child in the face and that made it personal.”
“When it gets personal, you’ll get a passion about it, and then you can create a program,” he said.
In 2004, operating “out of faith, not funds,” the mission moved to a house across the street while the original building was torn down. With the help of missionaries from Alabama, a new building was constructed on the same site. The present 7,000 square foot facility includes a commercial grade kitchen.
“We tore the old building down on April Fool’s Day — something I’ve wondered about — and in November we moved into the new building,” Gaines said.
Still, he has visions of it becoming bigger. He wants a bigger dining room and has run out of room in the walk-in coolers and freezers for the food pantry. Gaines would also like to expand the mission’s health care ministry by including a full-service clinic.
The mission’s public restrooms are often used by local homeless to take “Marine showers,” Gaines said, so he wants to provide a proper shower for them.
But the mission’s finances are “on a week-to-week basis,” he said.
“We are faith-based, not fund-based,” he said. “But our funding is way down. We have 70 different churches who support us, and praise God for them, but it costs $12,000 to $17,000 a month just in operating expenses.
“People don’t want to give you money for that, but if you tell them you’re feeding the hungry, they’ll give. But with the economy the way it is, individual donations are way down. People will volunteer their time or bring in canned goods, but the insurance companies won’t take a can of green beans for the premium.
“We’ve struggled financially from the day I got here and probably will be on the day I leave,” he said.
It’s bad enough that he has suspended this year’s Thanksgiving turkey distribution. Last year, the mission spent $11,000 for 500 Thanksgiving baskets.
“Right now, I have more pressing needs that are a priority,” Gaines said. “I worry about it, but I praise God that we’re not shut down.”
“Our foundation is in Jesus Christ, not in any one church, and that’s why we continue to grow,” he said.
About the Author