Pastor serving the 'least of these' in places 'nobody wants to go' answers God's call
After two years of serving as a Baptist church pastor in Southern California, Kathy Huck felt God's calling to take her ministry into the streets and homeless encampments so she could foster friendships and be better suited to fulfill Jesus' call to "serve the least of these."
As a former pastor at Second Missionary Baptist in Simi Valley, California, Huck followed God's call in 2018 to launch About My Father's Business, a homeless outreach ministry. Huck left her position to focus on serving people living on the street or in their cars.
"I'll never forget it. I was standing on Topanga and Nordhoff, two streets in the San Fernando Valley," she told The Christian Post. "And the Lord just said, 'Pastor Huck, your ministry starts here.'"
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Huck grew up going to church and was raised to have a "heart for Christ." She heard God's call to start AMFB while volunteering for Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, an organization dedicated to reducing hunger and homelessness. After meeting with a group of friends to distribute resources to the homeless, Huck felt God's presence.
AMFB spends around $3,000 a month to provide various resources to individuals living on the street, such as tents, clothes and food. In addition to receiving support from individual donors, AMFB partners with other ministries, including the Hollywood Food Coalition.
The 20 AMFB team members work as volunteers, and the only paid member is a bookkeeper. AMFB also has outside volunteers who contribute by putting bags of supplies together, but Huck said that this number varies.
Earlier this month, AMFB served food to around 150 people who live in tiny home communities or in their cars during its sixth-annual Thanksgiving event.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield allowed the group to host the event at his field office.
One of Huck's friends, the head chef for an organization called Kitchen to Go, cooked the Thanksgiving meal for free, while the group Huck volunteered with, Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, brought the drinks. The local Rotary Club also brought blankets and rain ponchos as a giveaway.
"And so, we make sure that they leave with all the stuff that they need to prepare for the winter," the AMFB founder said. "And they have a really good Thanksgiving meal, a meal that's to die for."
One important part of AMFB's mission involves building trust with the people they serve and treating them with dignity.
This usually involves Huck visiting homeless people at their encampments to distribute resources directly to them. The group typically conducts outreach within the West Valley of Los Angeles.
"I love what I do because I think it's the bottom rung; it's the basement," Huck said. "It's the place nobody wants to go. I call us the janitors. Nobody wants to be where we are, but it is ground zero because you can't understand what people need until you understand who they are, where they are, how they live."
Earlier in November, Huck participated in a discussion at Pepperdine University's Malibu campus titled "The Christian Response to Hunger and Homelessness." The university hosted the panel as part of a series of events held in honor of Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.
During the panel, Huck called for Christians to view homeless individuals as human beings and to allow them to have a voice in how they want to be served. Speaking with CP, the outreach leader said she has built relationships with those she helps and considers many of them her friends.
When she visits encampments, for example, Huck said that she learns people's names and remembers specific details about them, reaching out with a "sincere heart." When she invites people to her home for dinner, Huck says it's not just random individuals she met through outreach but people she's come to know.
"They're my family," she said. "You know, we have this relationship. We go out to lunch; we do stuff together. If there's a street fair, we all might just go and hang out. You don't even think about them being unhoused anymore. They're just your friends; like real human connections, real human relationships."
"But I'm just saying that we have to see them as human from every aspect," Huck stated. "And the minute we do that, things change."
Despite receiving accolades for her work, Huck said she is not a "superstar."
"Jesus is a superstar," she said. "I'm not special. As a Christian, we have to stay grounded so we don't get full of ourselves because it's easy to do that. What we're doing and the people that God has called us to serve has to be the focus."
"And that's all of us. We're called to serve everyone," she added. "Not just homeless, not just the hungry, but everyone."
