Hello everyone, I just wanted to give you a recap of 2025. On March 19 of 2025 we did our first Rest For Your Soul outreach in Southeast Roanoke setting up on the corner of Jamison Avenue and 13th St. Since then we have set up every Tuesday afternoon between 1 pm and 3 pm to minister to the community, mostly to the homeless and the drug addicted in that community. During this time we have met hundreds of people most of which live on the streets, most of them who are addicted to heroin or meth or both. We have been able to provide them with hot meals, hygiene supplies, Bibles, Gospel tracts. We’ve been able to pray with them, evangelize and preach the truth of Jesus. We’ve been able to bring some to faith in our Lord And Savior Jesus Christ.
After our first trip into Kensington the neighborhood in Philadelphia and talking to Pastor buddy at Calvary Chapel Kensington in June, we came home and immediately, with the help of so many people that I am so blessed to have on our team, we were able to put together a resources list on our website that includes resources for housing, food banks, clothing banks, drug rehabs, and a number of other things that can help the community.
As we stated into the summer, we were, on average, ministering to between 100 and 120 people in that two hour timeframe each Tuesday. As we’ve come into the winter months that’s drop down to around 70 on average. We’ve been able to build relationships with many people. We’ve also started doing video visitations with people in jail that we knew from the southeast area which has allowed us to preach the gospel to them when they are not influenced by drugs. It has allowed us to show them love because nobody else visits them. It’s allowed us to help them get set back up when they come out of jail.
Melissa and I have both gone back to Kensington for trips and we’ve always been encouraged by the staff up there and we always learn new things on how to deal with the drug epidemic and the homelessness.
God has always blessed this outreach with good weather. Since that first Tuesday in March we have never had a Tuesday afternoon with bad weather. There have been times where 15 minutes before we’re supposed to start, it’s pouring down rain and five minutes before we’re supposed to start the clouds clear and the sun comes out. There have been times were right at 3 o’clock. The weather starts to get bad and that’s our queue to wrap up, but during the time of the outreach, we have always been blessed with good weather. Just a reminder that we are following God‘s path on this.
God also blessed us a few months ago in October with somebody who wanted to pay 8 months in advance for us to have a storage unit just right down the road from where we set up so that the items that we need would be close by we would be able to keep them better organized, and keep more on hand. It also gives us a place to pray beforehand, and after and also to debrief after each outreach.
As we start into 2026 we are praying for a building to work out of in that area to where we can start doing Bible studies. We can start doing more for that community to reach that community. We are also praying for more funding. Melissa and I will start formal fundraising this month going to area, churches and organizations. We are praying for more people to come alongside us on our team which will give us more opportunity to minister in this community, Melissa and I are praying that we can transition into full time ministry soon as trying to keep up with ministry, our business, our jobs and our house has us stretched quite thin. But most of all we are praying for God‘s will to be done and that we stay on his path and all these endeavors.
We also created social media pages for Rest For Your Soul and Buchanan’s in the wild on Facebook and Instagram to make more people aware of what we are doing in this community.
Also, Melissa and I have felt lead to sign up for at least three trips this year based out of CCL. The first trip will be in late April going to Ukraine. The next trip will be in late May going to Manila and we’re planning at least one trip to Tbilisi, Georgia, possibly in between the Ukraine and the Manila trip and possibly later on in towards the end of the summer. Again these trips require funding. They require people on the Rest For Your Soul team that can fill in for us while we are gone, so we asked that you join us in prayer for these things.
-Funding that’s needed
-A building
-More people to join the team
-Hearts to be reached in this community
-That Melissa and i can transition into full time ministry
We also ask you to pray that we stay on God‘s path for this ministry that we don’t get ahead of him that we don’t fall behind that we don’t veer to the left or the right, but that we stay right and step with him.
As always we love you and appreciate all of your prayers and support.
Derek, Melissa and Alex
Buchanans in the Wild
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