Faith Matters for July 4, 2009

• By TERRY ROBINSON
• Advocate News Features staff
• Published: Jul 4, 2009

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Decorating and running a shelter may not have been what Sharon Green had in mind with her interior designer degree.

Green, who graduated from Southern University in 1975, managed her own interior design business for 24 years until God called her to the ministry in 1999.

“God said let it go. I have use of you,” Green said. “I wanted to be the best black interior designer there was, but it didn’t work out that way. Use of you means ministry. It means that you have to meet the needs of the people and the needs of the people are greater than you making money.”

In 2003, Green used her own money to purchase the Christian-based Youth with a Mission Vision Shelter for women and children at 8255 Mickens Road.

Green, 54, said she started the shelter because God wasn’t satisfied with her just joining the ministry.

“I thought he just wanted me to go do church work in the church house and that was it,” she said. “Ministry is outside that building.”

The 24-hour shelter has 35 people, including 16 children. Green said she takes in battered, homeless and pregnant women and also nonviolent offenders and mental patients. The shelter has 10 bedrooms, five bathrooms and two kitchens.

Green’s goal is to help the women improve life skills and get back into mainstream society.

“I am so delighted to answer the call of being a faithful servant,” Green said. “This shelter was created out of love.”
Green said she also helps the women get aid for themselves and their children. The women pay a daily fee if they are able, but the shelter relies mostly on churches, donations and other aid, including the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank.

Green is leery about accepting any kind of governmental aid.

“I don’t, because I preach the Gospel, and I preach the Gospel uncompromised,” she said. “If I take state money or federal money, I have to abide by their rules and I can’t not preach the Gospel.”

That also allows Green to require the women,  among other things, to attend Bible study once a week and church on the weekend.

“I don’t care where you go (to church) as long as you go,”  said Green, who attends New Beginnings Ministries. “God’s been too good for me to let you come on this ground and you not go.”