Mobile Home park mission

Tammy Keith

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — The first time Gary Harrison, a white man, saw Phillip Fletcher, a black preacher, in the mobile home park in Conway where Harrison lives, a drunk Harrison screamed and cursed at him to leave.

When Fletcher left Harrison’s mobile home after a visit on a recent afternoon, Harrison hugged him, slapping him affectionately on the back - even gave him a quick kiss on the side of his face.

“You’re my brother, man,” Harrison said. “I love you, but don’t tell nobody.”

Fletcher laughed and walked slowly through the trailer park, wearing a backpack and looking like a college student instead of a 37-year-old who made Oakwood Village mobile home park, at 475 E. Robins St., his mission and started City of Hope Outreach.

“Gary and I - that’s after three years,” Fletcher explained. “You can’t do this type of thing looking for immediate results. I come out with a lot of grace looking for God to do something.”

That something has been more than telling people about the Bible. It’s grown into a mission that helps people with food and utility bills, cleans up the park and tutors the children who live there with the help of community, church and college volunteers.


You can read the rest of the article at http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010/apr/11/mobile-home-park-mission-20100411/