GLEN ALLEN, Va. — If you ask Karel Harris to describe the ministry to single mothers she founded you will get a quick disclaimer. “I call myself a co-founder,” she says with humility. Harris is director of “Thrive!Moms,” a ministry supported by Northminster Baptist Church in Richmond, Va.
“I’m not the leader of this group,” says the intelligent and articulate Harris. “I think everyone of them would say I’m the leader, but I’m the servant. I can’t say I founded this, but God put it on my heart. He’s the founder. He’s the leader.”
Karel Harris with Miranda, the baby of one of the women in “Thrive!Moms.”
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Harris was a panelist at the Nov. 7 Virginia Baptist Pastors Conference, which focused on Fresh Expressions, a church revitalization movement.
Her comments are not falsely modest, but born of a genuine conviction: She feels privileged that God gave her a burden to love the ones he loves.
“The Lord put a word on my heart — I typed it out, it was so strong,” she recalls. “It was that I should leave the 99 and seek the one that was out there lost. You’ve got to go for the one, not for the numbers. You’ve got to go for that one life.”
With a clear sense of a call from God, Karel sought to build relationships with mothers who have it hard: Single mothers who are sometimes paying more for childcare than they make in salary. Women who are bone-weary and whose hope for the future has dwindled to nothing. Women who have grown accustomed to hard knocks from life, hard times from creditors and hard looks from the self-righteous.
Referring to the appreciation she has for volunteers and the need for them, she doesn’t sugar-coat the requirements.
“This is not Sunday church,” she says. “This is real life. We have, let’s say, 30 members and at any given moment, 20 of them are having their lives fall apart.”
Still, Harris is determined that her calling is to make sure that the “one” gets the support and help needed.
“What I discovered is that the Lord did not put me in the middle of them to fix them, but to be with them in their pain. But to do that, you have to be willing to hurt!”
Thrive's remodeled space offers a place for single mothers gather.
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“I was praying, saying ‘How do I do this?’ and God answered me clearly, ‘If you show up willing to love them, I will show up and do the rest.’ ”
Harris recalls her prayers leading to her awareness that God was calling her to this ministry.
“I prayed ‘God, please give me a burden for those who are breaking your heart. I want my heart to hurt for those your heart is hurting for.’ ”
As she continued to pray for that burden, the Lord answered by making her aware that she could not begin to withstand it if he gave her his burden.
“So, I prayed, ‘Then, Lord, give me the biggest burden I can carry even if it is only a tiny part of yours.’ ”
Her burden for hard-pressed young mothers is not just spiritual in nature and not academic only. She shares with them the pain of her own past.
“I have a ninth-grade education because I was a teen-age mom,” she confides matter-of-factly. “My life seemed to disintegrate when I was 17. My dreams of going to college — or even of finishing high school — evaporated right before me.”
But God did not abandon her. “Eventually, I went to Chicago and there I started a business and it became successful. When I was into the fifth year of this business, I felt God saying, ‘Go.’ ” So, obediently, she went.
Now married to a husband who is supportive of what she is doing, they have funded the ministry largely by themselves.
“I cook for them every week — for them and for all the children. As it has grown, it has become expensive, but I know how it is to be hungry, and I’m determined that they are going to get fed when we meet.”
Harris emphasizes that a “simultaneous and equally significant ministry” for children is called Thrive!Kidz. While their moms meet, adult volunteers called “Sowers” lead children's bible lessons, crafts, prayer circle and praise and worship.
“Our greatest need is for Sowers who will come and plant seeds of the word and of Christ’s love for them into their young eager spirits each week. Our motto for the Thrive is a quote by Frederick Douglas, ‘It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.’ ”
Currently, Harris is working toward receiving tax-exempt status.
But as another indication that God provides, Northminster has recently informed her that it will assume the financial support of the meetings including meals, so she is feeling blessed. Not only are they financially supportive, but church people have been wonderful to the women and their children, she avows.
When Northminster welcomed Thrive!Moms, the space they could offer had to be set up and broken down every week.
Harris recalls, “It was a large impersonal church room that gave the feeling of temporary and borrowed–two things that the moms know well and wish were otherwise in their own lives. They hunger for something personal, something that is consistent, something that is theirs and where they can find a sense of belonging. It was important to me to give them a space that showed they were loved and thought of; where they were first for a change and not just made to fit in around more important things. The basement had space that was old, musty, broken and unused (for good reason), but I saw its potential. I saw what it could be with a little love and investment. The biggest challenge was to convince the church that tearing down a 112-year-old wall separating two rooms was a good idea!”
Jeanne Murdock, Northminster’s Missions Coordinator, adds, “They did it! We got volunteers from the community to help us. You know, Nehemiah had to build a wall, and we had to tear one down!”
But the wall has become a symbol of the church’s acceptance, encouragement, support and partnership even though Thrive!Moms is not technically an official ministry of the church.
Even though everything seems to be going well for Harris and Thrive!Moms, she is transparent enough to admit her own hang-ups.
“My biggest struggle is every single day I feel I’m not qualified,” she said. “I know God put this into my heart to love them. And, when the pain becomes too intense and I cry out, ‘I can’t!’ he gives me a new heart.”
She continued, “Sometimes, I want to control the outcomes. But I think control issues all stem from fear but the kind of love God gives and the faith we have in him takes the fear away. There is no fear in faith. If pain and frustration are sometimes great, the joy of seeing them grow in Christ and in love for one another is even greater.”
What has Harris learned and what advice would she give others following God’s call into new expressions of the church?
“First, stay in the moment,” she says. “This will keep you from letting the past control your future and will keep you from trying to control the future.”
“Next, remember, it’s all about building relationships.”
“Stay genuine because it builds trust.”
And, finally, Harris says, “Love them. People don’t need to be preached at nearly so much as they need to be loved.”
Jim White ([email protected]) is editor of the Religious Herald.