It only takes one to break the cycle of poverty. Dwayne Baker knows that’s true. He was the one that made the difference in his own family.

Today, Baker is director of Savannah Baptist Ministry Center, but he grew up living in the government housing projects in Lexington, Ky. with his mother and four siblings. After high school, he joined the Army during the Vietnam war, but not necessarily for patriotic reasons.

“I didn’t care. Kill me now, kill me later. It didn’t matter,” he said. But it turned out the Army did matter. The experience changed him. He lived through Vietnam and began taking classes and learning skills. He ended up in college studying education after his Army term.

“I was a teacher and then an assistant principal in Columbus,” he said. “I helped pay for my sister to go to school and then the two of us worked together to get my mom out of the projects. That made the difference for my family.”

Baker and all four of his brothers and sisters have gone to college and earned either an associate degree or a full four-year college degree. All escaped the cycle of poverty.

“None of our children know about living in a housing project. None of them know about food stamps. One person can make the difference.”

That’s the message Baker wants children in Savannah to hear. Baker took over as director of the Savannah Ministry Center just a year ago. He and his wife had visited the city on vacation before ever considering a move. They spent their time on River Street. When he returned to the city, that was all he knew.

But just two blocks from the tree-lined historic district the world changes. Three housing projects sit on the edge of the tourist area. Fred Wessells, Hitch Village, and Blackshear government homes house more than 5,000 residents.

“We walked through this place and our hearts broke,” Baker recalled. A year ago he moved to Savannah and started working to change the world of the city within a city. “Our purpose is to reach this community for Christ. We do that by using any resource we have to draw them in and talk about Christ,” he said.

Those resources range from clothes and food ministries to tutoring to offering shower facilities to the homeless. “As they come they always hear the gospel. We tell it to to them. If we gave them a tract it would just end up in the trash. Most people in this community have a problem with reading. Most have not even finished middle school.”

A job training program pays each participant $50 a week to go through the program. A local businessman finances the effort.

“(We pay them because) they have to see the rewards of work. There are too many other ways to make money like drug dealing,” Baker explained. In less than a year 28 students, ages 16 to 25 years, have finished the class and all are still working. In the first class of eight, seven accepted Christ and are now active in local churches.

“And the eighth guy is still working and we’re still working with him,” Baker said. Knowing that staying in school is the best way to ensure success in the job market, volunteers also provide daily tutoring classes. They try to help children like David, who has been in the first grade for three years. After a year of tutoring at the Baptist Center, David is heading for second grade.

“We realized that a lot of kids do not eat and can’t work well in school because they are hungry. So we feed them,” Baker said.

It’s not hot dogs and potato chips that they eat. “We feed them meat and vegetables and milk. It’s a full meal.”

The ministry is vital to the community because “children are raising themselves.”

None of it happens with just the small paid staff at the center. It takes volunteers from all over the nation to run the programs offered.

“We have mission groups that come in on spring break and all through the summer to run our summer programs. We couldn’t do it without a lot of help.”

For more information about working at the Savannah Baptist Center, call (912) 232-1033.

 

Did you know...

Dwayne Baker is a North American Mission Board missionary supported through the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering gifts and the Cooperative Program.

For more information about other church and community ministries contact GBC Associational Missions Ministries at (770) 936-5222 or 1 (800) RING–GBC, ext. 222.

Your church’s giving through the Cooperative Program is vital to the missions and ministries of the GBC and the Southern Baptist Convention.

For more information or to order free educational materials on the Cooperative Program, contact the GBC Cooperative Program office at ahill@gabaptist.org or (770) 936-5240 or at 1 (800) RING–GBC.

You and your church may send Cooperative Program gifts to:

Dr. J. Robert White, Executive Director, Georgia Baptist Convention 2930 Flowers Rd., South Atlanta, GA 30341-5532