Coming Home to Serve: Brandon Holmes' Vision for Beds for Kids

we found out that there were hundreds of children sleeping on the floor lots of families coming out of shelters and into permanent housing that didn't have any furniture and couldn't afford that you know they're paying bills they're paying for food to furnish a home seemed like a luxury and so we said maybe we can do something about this Brandon Holmes had been a missionary in Africa before discovering that families in the very City he grew up in were struggling with basic household needs how would Brandon respond to what he learned you're about to find out this episode of GPS God people stories an Outreach Of The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association I'm Jim Kirkland Brandon Holmes says he's just an ordinary man in whose life God has done extraordinary things that's the way God works says Billy Graham you are a link in God's chain and God's plan to proclaim the gospel to the whole world right now at history are you as a Young Man a young woman ready to say I'm ready to go you're going to hear Billy Graham elaborate on that a little later in this episode in the meantime if you're ready to see where God would like to take you visit us online at find peacewithgod.net and we will give you Insight on how to learn that how to grow closer to God that's fine peacewithgod.net and whenever you listen to GPS always know that you can find that address fine peacewithgod.net as a link in our show notes GPS God people stories Brandon Holmes grew up in Charlotte North Carolina my dad was a banker like many other folks in Charlotte and we attended church somewhat regularly but I wouldn't say any of us walked with the Lord necessarily and so we are kind of your typical middle class Suburban family no major drama or hardship but just kind of went through all the Motions of Life of elementary school middle school high school and did things without rocking the boat too much but then the boat did get rocked when Brandon was in high school his dad felt the need for a change all a sudden God did start knocking on his heart and he ended up taking a major career change and started serving downtown the homeless populations and as he did that without any like real reasoning except for he felt there had to be something bigger he started pursuing God and started engaging my family in God conversations and at church more and so our family started pursuing God in the same way that he was as a result of his pursuit of wanting to know something more what Brandon started trying to figure out was a better understanding of who God is I had a number of Jewish friends and went to bar mitzvah and Bot Mitzvah about that same time in life and I started like realizing that God was to be revered and beautiful um but had a lot more questions in his search for answers Brandon started going to youth group and fellowship of Christian athletes meetings and it was at one of those FCA meetings that Brandon came to know Jesus Christ personally I was there because my friends were there initially but this one night we had a senior in high school he was not a a famous athlete he was not you know NFL player or anything like that and he shared the details of The Passion of Christ the the final hours of Jesus and it rocked my world to know that Jesus would endure such suffering to accomplish something for me and for all those people that I loved and those that I didn't yet know there was a call to follow him that evening and I remember saying yes I had a 1988 old Chevy Blazer at that time I got into the car and truly I felt as if Christ was in the seat beside me and went home with me and I just wept on my bed with him sitting beside me just considering the beauty of what he just invited me into that night changed Brandon's life when he went back to his High School weightlifting class he handed out Bible verses he says he wasn't even sure what he was doing but he knew he was trying to live out his new found faith that Faith would cause Brandon to change the plans he had for the rest of his life I was a little bit directionless in high school before knowing who Jesus was I knew that I could do some kind of engineering or Finance like my dad but it would just be to kind of keep up with the Joneses to establish a life of what I saw all around me but after coming to know Jesus my desire was to serve people I found out that kind of by maybe what my dad introduced me to was that I could meet with those who were in business suits and worked at the bank but then also have conversations with those who were homeless on the streets and quickly like decided that I wanted to do something that connected the two people from different backgrounds coming together kind of under the the same Banner in the resources being shared the problem was Brandon didn't know how he could make a career out of that so he planned on becoming a high school history teacher and baseball coach he thought that would give him the opportunity to help transform other young men's lives in the same way his life had been transformed but during his time at Appalachian State University in North Carolina Brandon changed his major five times he was definitely determined to figure out how to pursue god with his talents I started off a secondary education major and then went to maybe social work and then I believe I went to Theology and then I went to a general business degree and then finally after all that landed on finance and was doing what my dad had done but not necessarily for the reason of going into the business world I just knew that I could apply that in a lot of different ways somehow in Ministry or in the business realm whatever it may be Brandon graduated in 2008 thinking he'd find a banking job in Charlotte but the Great Recession made finding that kind of work pretty difficult he started praying for direction and that's when Brandon's best friend and former college roommate offered a suggestion move with him to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to work at a Christian University I just kind of said Lord is this what you want for me and very quickly all the funding came in like without me even trying and I just saw that the Lord was purposely opening a door for me to move forward on that so at a Christian University in the Congo Brandon taught English and basic business courses using the notebooks he had just completed as a college student back in the States his students weren't the only ones learning though one particular morning God decided to teach Brandon a lesson I woke up and we lived on a compound with barbed wire and we had an armed guard because we're in a very contentious W torn part of the country and I looked out and I saw people coming out of their mud huts and I pied them and I just said God these folks will never go to the movie theater go taste like a fancy steak at a restaurant and of course Looking Back Now that was a very prideful and like arrogant one-sided thing but it was like the Holy Spirit was a a a backhand and I got popped in the back of the head and I just felt the Lord say to me Brandon these people have experienced hunger and pillaging and disaster they've experienced pretty much hell on Earth and yet they worship me unlike anybody else I've brought you here to learn from them not them to learn from you and from that point on I understood what he was doing in my life with a lot clearer vision and with a a new level of humility Brandon came to realize that God was using the Congo as a training ground to show him love through discipline and Brokenness but within a year Brandon got moved to a new training ground I had contracted malaria five times while I was in the Congo and one of those times I had to be evaced out because I was so sickly and had to go to Nairobi for like legitimate health care because the hospitals in Congo couldn't benefit me and so while I was in Nairobi I stayed with another missionary family and got to know them and they introduced me to an opportunity in a mathari valley slum which is the second largest slum of Nairobi with an organization that they said hey you could come learn here and participate and so I went back after my time in Congo to to live with that family and to serve in that slum doing micro Finance micro Finance provides funding and training to people who have a business idea but don't have the money themselves to start it it helps them build a business that generates income and lifts them out of poverty Brandon joined a well-known micro Finance program and spent his time in Nairobi educating and training people on what the Bible says about business and money management his work helped families who had accepted predatory interest rates from loone sharks break free from a crushing amount of debt after a few months in Kenia Brandon felt the Lord might be calling him to another change he asked God if he should stay in international missions or return to the United States what I'd learned from the Kenyans that I had served was a deep passion to see God's kingdom come in the place that God has planted you and I felt like God was calling me back to Charlotte which I didn't have necessarily intentions beforehand to live in Charlotte but I wanted to come back to Charlotte and see the city improve through whatever God had intended after nearly a year and a half overseas in 2010 Brandon returned to Charlotte he was working in an inner city church when he got connected with two other men who were willing to Pivot their lives to follow the lord I was living back with my parents trying to figure out what it was I had no money to my name obviously or anything else a lot of my colleagues were already working back in the banks and everything else and so uh I had these coffee conversations with these two guys Tim rally and Daniel Fogerty Tim told Brandon that a small group at church had recently delivered some extra Furniture to a single mom who had just moved out of a shelter she and her children were now living in a barebones home and they simply needed basic furniture that situation touched Tim's heart he realized that this was a big need in Charlotte and he had heard that I was looking for something and so a mutual friend just connected us over coffee and I told him I don't know what I'm supposed to do I just know I'm supposed to serve as the Lord's hands and feet Brandon Tim and their other friend Daniel Fogerty started researching what the furniture situation was like for low income families in Charlotte we found out there were hundreds of children sleeping on the floor lots of families coming out of shelters and into permanent housing that didn't have any furniture and couldn't afford that you know they're paying bills they're paying for food to furnish home seemed like a luxury and so we said maybe we can do something about this the three men started making connections within their Community they got an SUV with a pull-along trailer to carry furniture that people were getting rid of on Facebook Marketplace they connected with families through Social Service Groups and even secured a storage unit to fill with extra Furniture we all thought hey this may be something that the Lord is stirring up and we want to pursue this and so this friendship between the three of us began and and turned into a nonprofit that we ultimately ended up establishing and pushing forward they named the nonprofit beds for kids simple name and it was created specifically to tug at people's hearts and to help encourage people to help them solve the city of Charlotte's need for children to have a comfortable bed to sleep in at night it also provided other types of furniture not just beds we said God if this is something you want to do like make it legitimate and sure enough enough I mean just it felt like week after week we would be connected with another person another company that just expanded the ministry among the many ways God answered their prayers was through an overflowing storage unit beds for kids now needed a warehouse we started praying in a parking lot of a vacant Warehouse right outside of downtown and we said Lord this Warehouse we have no means of acquiring it or renting it even but if this is what you want us to do like please give us this Warehouse within a month of praying that prayer we were set up on a coffee connect with a gentleman we didn't know but through other church members who pulled up in a Maserati and I just say that because it was just a a movie scene and he didn't have much time he just said hey I heard what you're doing I like it a lot and I have a 11,000 foot Warehouse that I like to give to you and that warehouse was two blocks away from where we had been praying just a month earlier and he gave it to us rentree to start f up the blessings just kept coming a local Furniture distributor told beds for kids they wanted to start giving toward the cause too and they send beds for kids brand new furniture and mattresses door after door was opening up not so much based on our effort although we were working really hard but these opportunities that just compounded to us saying this needs to be something that becomes big we can't just make this a side gig let's make this a full-time thing that they did and they just discovered they were able to deliver more than just Furniture through the doors that God was opening they were able to deliver the gospel sharing the hope that's found in Jesus Christ we said often we realized that furniture was our currency to share the gospel and a cool aspect of our work was we would assume that yes going into families that had very little material wealth was a big aspect of our ministry and that's true but on the front half of the day we'd find ourselves in some of Charlotte's wealthiest homes wealthiest individuals who had the furniture you know if we're picking up a kitchen table or a bed from them because they just were ready for a brand new suite to fill out their home we found that we were in a place of intimacy with them just as much as those who didn't have material wealth and for both sets of homes we could very easily just say hey can we bless you with prayer and is there anything we can pray for and it didn't matter if we are in a 7,000 ft home or a 800t apartment you know in I housing in both places we were able to share who Jesus was and to be his hands and feet and not just that but we could go places where the church isn't necessarily able to go or it's not easy for them we were in a place of intimacy for folks who may not otherwise find themselves in church and so lots of stories came about of people in that place of kind of like intimacy of their own home they felt safe they would share with us what their family's struggling with or what their children are going through and would ask for us to pray right right then and there and so we would just hold their hands in a circle after either loading up the truck with their furniture or setting up the furniture we just delivered to them and we'd pray over them many of their deliveries were to single parent homes with a mother or father who had nothing but what was in the black trash bags they got at their local shelter beds for kids was on a mission to help the Christian Community make a difference in these families lives you look at Acts chapter 2 and Acts chapter 4 where like all Believers had things in common there's this sharing of resources like to any who had need somebody else could Supply it and I think that's very much what BS for kids hopes to do is take where there's an abundance you know where there's plenty and be a uh an in between to get that to somebody who needs it so I think that's like the most obvious example I think in general like the gospel encourages us to be creative and to be creators and to develop things and so this was a nonprofit yes but it was also like an entrepreneurship we wanted to consider new ways to serve the city that it had not done before and so I think just in general um it reflects the gospel of something new being created where there's Brokenness Something Beautiful where there's darkness and in this case Furniture was our way of being able to creatively establish the kingdom in our city in a way that hadn't really been done before God continued to bless the ministry of beds for kids and Brandon worked as its director of operations until until 2014 that's when he felt God calling him to step away from the organization and so I left beds for kids with just a vision that I wanted to expand how I served my city and I I loved beds for kids it was great but I just felt that season was coming to an end and I desired to go into the business realm and so I left without a job actually in place because it was just again an Act of Faith just asking the Lord to reveal what would be next he had answered so many prayers in the past and so now he was asking me to like trust him again and so he was getting ready to lead me into the next season where God L Brandon next was Coca-Cola Consolidated Brandon had gone from asking Coca-Cola Consolidated for a grant and support of beds for kids to now interviewing for a job with them I've just celebrated 10 years now at Cocola Consolidated and am now in what I consider my dream role which is the charitable giving part of our company and and we look for nonprofits um and organizations that are providing fullness of life to the communities that we're in and we support them financially so that we can see the communities grow God has used Brandon to minister to people everywhere from Nairobi Kenya to Charlotte North Carolina yet Brandon still says his story is very ordinary and I don't say that to belittle what the Lord's done in my life but I'm Your Average Joe and yet the Lord Has Done extraordinary things in my life and So for anybody who's listening that doesn't have a million social media followers or hasn't written a book or anything before I mean I'm in that same boat but yet my cup overflows in the way that the Lord has lessed me abundantly I resonate deeply when David says to God like who am I and who is my family that you have done this for me I feel that very often I feel like the richest man on earth and yet I'm just kind of a a typical guy in the city of Charlotte trying to serve and see God's kingdom grow so just that it doesn't have to happen God's work in your life doesn't have to be some Wild event that gets publicized it can be so very beautiful just in small yearby year ((music playing)) ways Brandon Holmes knows firsthand that only God can give true purpose and meaning to anyone's life and finding that purpose and meaning Begins by having a relationship with God's son Jesus Christ if that's something you don't know and you want to know that now go to our website find peace with god.net that's fine peacewithgod.net along with the purpose Jesus gives to your life Brandon Holmes says there's something else you can expect something that keeps you on your toes you you'll hear what that is in just a minute you're listening to GPS God people stories a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association you are a link in God's chain and God's plan to proclaim the gospel to the whole world right now at History Billy Graham are you as a Young Man a young woman ready to say I'm ready to go and that takes us back to the Bible and Moses saw a bush burning and he went over to invest and out of the Bush spoke the Lord and he said I am the Lord God and Moses I want you to go and lead the people of Israel out of Egypt Moses said I can't I can't even speak I'm 80 years old God said Moses I've chosen you I'll be with you one man dedicating himself to Christ have you made your decision yet with God you can be sure that you are a majority just you and God tonight I'm going to ask you to receive him receive Christ into your heart if you're ready to receive Jesus Christ into your heart or you're ready to go deeper in the faith that you already have in Jesus then pay us a visit at find peacewithgod.net find peacewithgod.net Our Guest on this episode of GPS God people stories is Brandon Holmes God has used them to serve people in his community in a variety of ways and in all kinds of places he says something you can expect when you're walking with Jesus is the unexpected God always is surprising me like we are told to be a people of Hope and to ask certain things be specific in your prayers to God but we never figure him out but he like never disappoints and every time he comes through he blows whatever I had in mind out of the water and so as soon as I start feeling like I am getting used to my walk with the Lord I know I'm kind of in a dangerous spot because he's always surprising he's always breaking my expectations and doing the extraordinary one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that I should just always be ready for a surprise from God in the way that he responds to my asks and my needs and my desires we're grateful for Brandon Holmes joining us on this episode the ministry he founded beds for kids served 8,000 families and delivered more than 25,000 beds last year and as Brandon continues to care for his community in Charlotte he's also a husband and dad to three young children if you enjoyed hearing Brandon's story be sure you're subscribed to GPS so you will not miss any of the stories we share of how God works powerfully in people's lives WE Post new episodes every other Wednesday and we count it a blessing that you are are listening thank you I'm Jim Kirkland this is GPS God people stories an Outreach Of The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association always good news ((music playing))