PIN History 103

I hope you’ve read all of the PIN History posts, because there will be a pop quiz. In December of 2006, someone had a mobile home that they wanted to donate to PIN. After praying about it we felt like it was a great opportunity to get families off the street. So less than two years later we now have 3 mobile homes that we have used to help 5 families get off the street in that time frame. We currently have two families in our mobile homes. One of our mobile homes has a family of three with a daughter that is 5 years old, and the second home is a family of three with an infant that was born last week. Without PIN these families would probably have been split apart. God has used PIN to help keep these families together.

 ”Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” Matthew 28:19 NIV. If you are a Christian you are probable really familiar with this scripture. The word I want to focus on is “go”, when we hear go we often think about going on mission trips to faraway places. I would like to challenge you to think about using the term “go” locally. You might wonder how you can “go” locally. That was something I struggled with early on in PIN. I would invite homeless people to church with me but, they would come a couple times and then stop coming. In this I realized that I needed to take the church to them, but I didn’t have a theological degree so how would this work. Here is the cool thing God showed me, that He was going to provide the strength, knowledge and wisdom to make this work. So in August of 2006, PIN started its first Biblical service, 3 homeless people attended. PIN now offers a service every Sunday called PINnacle specifically designed for the homeless. PINnacle is a complete church service with worship and a biblical message. Over 30 homeless people have accepted Jesus since we started PINnacle and we have anywhere between 30 to 50 people at our Sunday services.

Starting next week I’m going to post a 6 part series of post related to the vision that God has given PIN.

 

PIN History 102

OK I have a big secret to share with you; it is something that might change the way you think about PIN. OK….. Dallas Stamper the founder and leader of PIN has started a very small number of things that PIN does. Actually, when I tell people that they seem shocked, because in most situations the leader starts everything the organization does, but not with PIN. Early on during the start of PIN, I realized that God was going to choice people other than me to actually make PIN what it was going to be. People that know me well know that I’m a control freak; no actually I’m a control Super Freak. I think by using other people to start things in PIN God is teaching me and everyone around PIN who is in control. Having God in control feels good even for a Super Freak.

OK in PIN History 101 you learned who actually started PIN, named PIN, and created the logo. Let me share a few more cool areas of our Ministry and who God chose to start them. We have a clothing ministry that is really cool, we take cloths that are donated and we buy underwear and socks to give to the homeless. This is so important in order to keep the homeless clothed and to prevent skin issues. George and Suzy Pillsbury started the clothing portion of this ministry. PIN also gives out hygiene supplies to the homeless every Sunday. This part of PIN is so important to help keep the homeless healthy and create self esteem, and Stephen and Kelly Wills started it. 

One of the coolest things PIN does is offer medical care to the homeless. You think it’s hard for the uninsured to get medical care; it’s crazy hard for the homeless. Our medical ministry started with one nurse and has now grown to a point where we have several nurses every Sunday and most Sunday’s we have a doctor. We also pay for homeless peoples prescriptions when they come through are ministry. So maybe Dallas created this part of PIN…. nope it was Sue Pekoe.

Come back Friday when I will conclude this series with PIN History 103 when you will get to learn about the 1 thing Dallas actually started.

 

PIN History 101

I (Dallas Stamper) get allot of questions about how PIN got started, so this week I wanted to post some details about how PIN got started, got its name, logo, and how our different ministry areas got started. The thing you’re going to notice is how many different people God has used in this ministry.

PIN Started in June of 2002 when Anne Stamper felt God’s call to help poor people. That evening Anne served 12 sandwiches to 5 homeless people. It’s really crazy when you think how this ministry has grown from 12 sandwiches to what it is today.

So how did PIN get its name? Well early on there were like 10 of us who started the ministry sitting around eating food and we realized we needed to call this organization something, when all of the sudden Brian Foley said how about PIN. Brian came up with the idea of calling it People In Need which we all thought was great.

Our original logo was created by a high school senior named Ariel. She created the logo as an assignment for school, Ariel went on to attend college at VCU where she was going to major in graphic design. It was cool when she came back during one of her breaks during her freshman year and saw her logo on the back of a bunch of t-shirts. Then Jared Legg came along and redesigned the logo, but kept the original intent of the logo.

Next Post PIN History 102 learn about how our clothing, hygiene, and medical ministry are started.