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This site will be deleted soon. Please add our new site shown on friends.. We would love your friendship... I am Shirley Smith, President and Co-founder of His Ministries in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. I created this site to get personal about something I care about, to fight drug, alcohol and other addictions, But because of problems on this sight, I had to create a new His Ministries sight. This myspace sight will be deleted as soon as most of our friends here have had a chance to add the new sight. to
I am dedicated to combating addictions by providing services and programs that work to make a difference in the lives of youth, adults and families. We provide a music venue for youth, a referral service & education for families and adults with addictions, SAMSON a 12-week program I teach in the regional jail to inmates, and we outreach to families to provide important needs.
The Edge Music Venue is where music is on a mission, to prevent youth form becoming involved with drugs and alcohol and to educate them on the harmful and life threatening risks. Bands with a passion for youth come to give youth a great place to hang with friends. Youth come and hang out with friends and mentoring adults. Bands of different music styles come and share their music and lives with youth. We all listen to music, play pool, many play their own instruments, and we have a great time. Prevention begins with giving youth something they desire, interaction with others.
SAMSON stands for, Steps And More Strength Overcoming Narcotics is a 12-week program taught in the regional jail weekly. I believe one can take specific steps that will help one Overcome and gain Victory in their lives. More Strength can come from the help of others and understanding and gaining strength from the Power who gives us life, Christ Jesus.
We provide a referral service for individuals and families who may have an addiction problem. Giving them information to treatment programs, support groups and local counseling providers. In addition, we provide education through health fairs to our schools and organizations.
Outreaching to needy families is important to us. Our goals are to work to break the cycle of family-generation substance abuse by being an outreach base for mission teams that can provide for basic essential needs and most importantly spiritual direction to families of Southwest Virginia. We enjoy providing a place for mission groups to come and minister to the needy by providing clothing, food, school supplies, as well as vacation Bible schools and community block parties, coats for the winter. And we at The Edge Music Venue provide Thanksgiving Dinner on that November Thursday that may be a lonely place for many.
His Ministries’ outreach program provides churches and youth groups the opportunity to impact the lives of others. Mission teams are invited to stay at His Ministries' facilities, while they work to change the lives of families throughout Southwest Virginia. Groups in the past have provided vacation Bible Schools, community block parties, collected and distributed school supplies, winter coats and household items for needy families. Also, work teams have helped in the restoration of His Ministries' buildings, and The Edge Music Venue, and now work to build a thrift store training center for youth.
The vision for His Ministries came about in a most unusual way, through an answered prayer in August of 1995. We were planning a street outreach taking the gospel to those who hang out in town. Before the event, I read the book, The Cross and the Switchblade, by David Wilkerson. Mr. Wilkerson is the founder of Teen Challenge, established in 1958, the most successful program in the world that assist individuals with addictions. At the time, Rev. Wilkerson was the pastor of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York.
On those streets that night, I saw the extent of the drug problem in our town, but I felt a lostness, a heartache of loneliness in the heart of the people I saw and met that night. That week, I began to pray to God and asked, “If you want us to do anything like what David Wilkerson did in New York, then let us meet him.”
In November, I bought an old used devotional book at a thrift store and upon opening it, a letter titled From the Desk of David Wilkerson and an envelope addressed to World Challenge fell out. It was an old newsletter he had written when he was still over the Teen Challenge Centers. An underlined sentence in the middle of the newsletter read, ‘write me a letter.’ By faith, knowing God brought that newsletter to me; I wrote Mr. Wilkerson and mailed it in the envelope addressed to World Challenge.
Six weeks later, I received a letter from World Challenge informing us that Mr. Wilkerson was now pastor of the Times Square Church in New York and if we desired, we could serve in the church’s many outreach programs. Paul and I wanted the training the programs could offer and believed we could bring that knowledge back to Big Stone Gap and help those who wanted help. After sharing our hearts with our home church in South Carolina, they paid our expenses. We left for New York in April of ‘96.
By this time, I had forgotten that prayer and only by God’s providence did we meet David Wilkerson and his wife Gwen three days after arriving in New York! While explaining to him why we wanted to work in the outreaches, Mr. Wilkerson advised us to work at the Upper Room for three days that fed the homeless and addicted.
On the third working day, Paul and I saw the vision for His Ministries, to begin an outreach center to those needing help with drug and alcohol problems. When we returned from New York, we began to work the vision we saw in the Upper Room, His Ministries, “Setting lives free” from the bondage of drug and alcohol addictions, for hope in Christ is a plan that will truly set the captives free. This is a plan for His Ministries, Inc.
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