Levi and Kateri Gill met while serving with a jobs training program that created employment opportunities through a wood shop and a local coffee shop. This work not only set the course of their personal lives, it also deepened their commitment to serving their community.  

Levi told us, “The wood shop grabbed my heart for people and this place, Jackson, Mississippi, and I learned what people wanted and needed. Since people needed jobs, I found talking about jobs has been the easiest way to talk about the gospel. I’m able to disciple people by sharing the good news of God’s original design for the world and work.”

However, Levi also saw the barriers that people from generational poverty faced in securing jobs. Levi told us that applications were often filled out incorrectly, left incomplete, or failed to inspire confidence in the employers. While the ministry gave him invaluable experience, Levi and Kateri both wanted to find a more holistic way to equip people in material poverty.

From Job Trainings to Deep Relationships

After identifying the needs in their community, Levi and Kateri were certified by The Chalmers Center to be Work Life and Faith & Finances facilitators. They began by offering these classes through a community group in their church. This community group would become the launching pad for Hope Exchange, a ministry that provides training for ministries serving people in material poverty, including Work Life, Faith & Finances, and Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence.

Hope Exchange is a place for people in material poverty and their ministry leaders to explore the complexity of their relational and spiritual poverty. One of the most important things the ministry has given the Gills is time with participants.

Kateri shared that in a recent conversation with one woman, she used the phrase “5 years down the road.” She said, “At that moment, I realized 5 years is a long time; but I want this woman to be around for half a decade! We usually don’t see much change in people’s circumstances in six months. A lot of change may happen on the inside in a matter of months, but if you want to see people’s lives change, you have to stick around.”

This investment of time flows from the fact that Hope Exchange is not simply a crisis relief ministry, it is a development ministry. Levi told us, “A participant getting a job isn’t the end goal, the goal is a life restored. So we’re not finished walking with someone because they get a job”

Out of these long-term relationships, Hope Exchange can create unique opportunities for participants. For example, this year they created part-time positions for three single mothers who have been participants for several years. In another case, two vehicles were donated to the ministry and Hope Exchange arranged for two participants, one being a single mother of four, to volunteer at the ministry as a way to work for the cars, bringing together dignifying effort and necessary provisions.

Restored Ministries Restore People

While sharing many encouraging stories of participants’ growth, they also shared about the overwhelming complexity of relational and material poverty and the heartache they face when they aren’t able to see relationships restored. This has been sanctifying for Levi and Kateri. They have wrestled with their limitations and their brokenness, realizing they are not the savior of anyone’s story, Jesus is. 

Kateri told us, “I realized I could dedicate my whole life to walking with just one of the girls and I couldn’t fix the problems in her life; but maybe that’s not the point. I may not be able to solve all the problems in someone’s life, but maybe God isn’t asking me to.”

This understanding ensured their model was rooted in mutuality. Participants and leaders draw from the same source of hope, Jesus. Levi explained, “We are sharing the hope that we have. There is mutuality in our name, Hope Exchange. We, as ministry leaders, are also being changed.” Kateri added, “I have to be changing. I have to be using the principles we are teaching in the group.”

Spreading Chalmers’ Influence

Since 2020, Hope Exchange partnered with churches and ministries in the Jackson area to facilitate classes and provide biblical, poverty alleviation training based on Chalmers Center’s materials. The Gills also became certified Chalmers Ambassadors giving them a wide range of knowledge of The Chalmers Center’s different materials and trainings.

Kateri shared, “We are interested in introducing Chalmers’ materials to  ministries and churches that are not likely to find them on their own.” The reason that Chalmers has remained at the core of their ministry, according to Levi, is because “The Chalmers Center focuses on the power of God to transform lives while emphasizing that it has to start in the church. The church needs to be made new as well. Only then can we see others restored.”