Living Out Your Faith in the Real World

Jane Hart (center, standing) founder of Hart Felt Ministries, and members of Beach United Methodist Church share a "one for all and all for one" moment with client Joe Truett (center, seated.)

Ministry supports homebound residents

Jane Hart gave up a 12-year job with ConAgra Foods to start Hart Felt Ministries in 2004 with one volunteer and one client.

Today the ministry in Jacksonville, Fla., nurtures 156 homebound elderly and disabled clients with more than 100 volunteers from area churches who perform  such chores as cleaning, shopping for groceries and lawn mowing. Hart is the only full-time paid employee of the ministry, which is supported by donations and grants. 

City leaders honored two volunteers for their work in 2006, but Hart doesn’t take credit for the ministry’s successes. “I tell people this is not my ministry,” said Hart, 58, who attends Beach United Methodist Church. “This is God’s work.”

Hart was nudged toward volunteerism after the death of her mother and husband in 1990. She was drawn to Jeremiah 29:11, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you …’”

She became a Stephen Minister, participating in the nondenominational ministry providing congregational care in times of grief or trauma, and began volunteering with a hospice. Then she felt a call from God to help the elderly.

Hart said, “Sometimes I feel like I don’t really have my feet on the ground, that I’m somewhere between heaven and earth, because the things I get to see and the people I get to meet are such precious people out there who are just struggling.”

—Adapted from a story by Amy Green in the e-Review newsletter of the Florida Conference.