Pastor Is Hospitalized, Rent Is Overdue : Church Runs Out of Money to Feed Poor

Billy Thomas waited patiently for a second helping of free food.

“They always have good meals, filling meals,” said Thomas, 35, who works for the minimum wage at a nearby burger stand. “They keep serving until the food runs out.”

Thomas was one of the more than 40 poor people who showed up one day last week for the service and dinner at the New Bethany Missionary Baptist Church. The church, on Long Beach Boulevard near Hill Street, is in a modest commercial building on the edge some of the city’s worst slums. It free meals attract the working poor as well as street people.

New Bethany’s founder and pastor, the Rev. Otis D. Moore, started feeding the poor about a year after he opened the church in 1984. Since the doors opened, he has subsidized church operations out of $60,000 saved from his years as a carpenter.

But now Moore, 63, is bedridden after major back surgery at Memorial Medical Center of Long Beach. The savings are gone, and the rent is seven months overdue. Unless some money can found, church officials say, the meal service will be halted.

“I’m sick and I can’t pay the rent, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” Moore said from his hospital bed.

Moore had kept his job to support the church until last year, when he injured his back while trying to move a delicatessen case. The injury left him unable to walk, much less work, for eight months. Moore said he could help only with the cooking at the church.

Even with the surgery last week, he said, doctors are telling him he should not work as a carpenter again.

New Bethany has about 600 members, but most are so poor that they cannot contribute money, Moore said. Church operations cost about $4,000 a month.

Moore said he started the meal service when he saw how many people, including women and children, were going hungry on the streets of Long Beach.

“I see so many people walking around eating out of trash cans. I just couldn’t stand it anymore,” Moore said. In response, the church started turning out a crock pot of beans and a crust of bread for the poor, and gradually the service expanded.

“We’re not a soup kitchen, we’re a full-course meal,” Moore said.

The church receives food donations from various sources. Once, a downtown Los Angeles produce company even donated some leftover filet mignon and chicken that provided New Bethany with a rare feast.

Moore said the donations do not go far enough. The church has to supplement them with grocery purchases.

At the church office, assistant pastor Jim Merchant leafed through a stack of bills. The church owes about $7,900 in back rent. Funds are so low that the church’s credit is stretched thin with agencies that dole out discount food.

Prostitutes have donated money--$50 in one case--to help the church, Merchant said. The people who show up for the nightly free dinners are supposed to take in a church service at 5 p.m. But if they don’t, they can still get dinner at 6.

“If you want to get a meal, you can get a meal,” Merchant said. “But you also can get some spiritual food.”

Ruth Foelber, director of Lutheran Social Services in Long Beach, said her organizations sometimes refer poor people to New Bethany when they need “an actual meal and some support in the evening hours.” She said New Bethany volunteers refer people to her agency for counseling, food, clothing, shelter and other services.

The crowds showing up at New Bethany every evening vary in size depending on the time of the month. More than 200 people showed up last Tuesday, the last day of May, because few had any food stamps or welfare money remaining, Merchant said.

Rib-Sticking Meals

Thomas, who had just wolfed down a hot dog, roll, beans and rice, said he likes the rib-sticking meals at the church, noting that officials let people eat as much as they want.

Mazerowski Jackson, 25, who showed up with his girlfriend, Deborah Harris, 28, said he was pleased with the meal.

“I’m very picky when it comes to eating, no matter what my situation is,” he said.

Harris said she had enrolled in a welfare program that day and had received an emergency housing voucher.

“This is my first time here, and it tastes pretty good, too,” she said. “I might come to church this Sunday. Don’t forget the hand that feeds you.”