A Non-Profit Christian Charitable Organization

Greater Love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends (John 15:13).

From Survive to Thrive, our operational concept, which forms the very basis of our existence, is based on Maslow’s 5 Levels of Human Need:

There is an important question we must all ask: what do people need to reach their full potential and thrive? The answer to this will come in various ways from various schools of thought. However, in the case of someone experiencing homelessness, they first need to have their most basic human needs met reliably every day.

In reference to notable psychologist Abraham Maslow, human beings’ physiological needs for food, water, clothing, shelter, and sleep must be satisfied for them to address more complex needs like mental and physical health, relationships, sobriety, long-term housing, and employment.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In the year 1943, Abraham Maslow developed a Hierarchy of Needs to explain the five levels that every human being must progress through to self-actualization.

It is an established fact, that for most homeless people who are seeking to achieve their physiological needs, the search for food, clothing, and shelter become more important and therefore prioritized above everything else. The understanding, therefore, of how humans progress up the ladder of needs, can help us better understand what forms of support people need to reach self-sufficiency. In response to this, Maslow suggested that “higher” needs can begin to develop even when “lower” needs are not fully satisfied.

1. Physiological Needs
To begin with, we must understand that food, water, clothing, sleep, and shelter are the basic necessities for anyone’s survival. For many people, these basic needs cannot be met without the help and support of charitable organizations. A place to receive a meal, which one finds reliable, can be what a person needs fundamentally to focus on obtaining other higher and greater needs.

Throughout seven days a week, Greater Love will offer free hot meals, water, clean clothing, and toiletries to anyone who comes to our center seeking help. Out on the sidewalk, volunteers and staff will meet and direct homeless guests to our services such as mental and physical health care or emergency shelter.

In some cases, and at some times, our staff will welcome a meal guest into its transitional housing program. Transitional housing programs provide a safe and supportive place for people to gain sobriety, health, and stability before pursuing the next steps. Interactions, dialogues and planning for the next steps can only take place effectively at a Greater Love center after immediate and basic needs have been met.

2. Safety and Security
Once a person’s basic needs are satisfied, the desire for order and predictability comes next in line. There are many barriers that may prevent people experiencing homelessness, from finding job security, and building a stable social network. Substance abuse, trauma, PTSD, and mental or physical health challenges are difficult to address without having a long-term safe place to live. The first step to helping someone toward self-sufficiency, is making sure their basic need for safety and security are met by providing housing and shelter. A permanent address is critical. Only then can most people begin to apply for employment, education, or disability.

Greater Love will design relevant programs and activities to provide a path toward recovery and stability. We will also, as a matter of importance, provide the opportunity to engage in meaningful work. Temporary housing and shelters will require guests to vacate the premises every morning and then line up again at night. These will be intended for emergencies.

3. Love, Care and Belonging
Everyone yearns for family and connection where they can truly feel loved, cared for and belong. For people living on the streets, it can be especially hard to find a welcoming community where they can experience all these. Many of the unfortunate people and victims are traumatized and find themselves without housing after experiencing domestic violence, abuse, or a kind of addiction, and mental health challenges. Many of the people living unhoused find themselves estranged from family and friends.

At Greater Love, our meal guests will not only rely on us for food, but for a connection to others, whom they can feel the warmth of love and affection of Christ. Everyone deserves a non-judgmental place in society where they can feel welcome with a sense of hope and dignity.

4. Esteem
One of the important steps for people working to maintain employment and recover from any kind of addiction, is gaining confidence and the respect of others. At Greater Love we believe that it is only after finding true love and belonging with a caring family, can people then work meaningfully on building healthy-inter-personal relationships.

In the pursuit of this, we at Greater Love will offer all the necessary support that we can. We will create a place where people on the road of recovery can participate in various meaningful volunteer works offered at our centers. This will offer them the opportunity to see themselves as valued, and as an important and essential members and meaningful-worthy contributors in society.

The sense of failure in past relationships by many people has held them bound in psychological traumas and emotional insecurities. Greater Love will create a supportive program that will focus on peer-support and accountability. This will serve as foundation for community-building toward rebuilding and reclaiming of self-esteem. Serving as an array of hope, participants can thereby regain confidence in themselves and their God-inherent potentials.

5. Self-Actualization
In reference to Maslow, we all crave a purposeful life, and that is a resounding truth. There is nothing more rewarding in life than having a sense of reaching one’s highest potential. This notwithstanding, will always appear and feel different for everyone, based on one’s peculiar goal and aim in life.

Bringing people to a place of awareness of the possibilities, and providing them with the moral and other necessary support systems are what will culminate in achieving all that in people. This is what residents at Greater Love centers will stand to benefit from.

Some of the solutions to homelessness universally include providing such basic needs as meals, housing, and clothing. These will not be all at Greater Love. We will, additionally, continue to help people find fulfillment, happiness, and growth in all areas of their life—spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional, etc.

The findings of Maslow suggest that we should not ask what is wrong with someone; but instead, we should focus on what they need. This is to imply that rather than asking: “Why is that person homeless?” we should ask “What does that person need?” That is a much practical way to helping solve nearly all problems in society.

The Charitable Philosophy of Greater Love In the year 2021, following the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and the worst humanitarian challenges it left in its tracks in many societies globally, God gave the vision of a unique charitable organization to Bishop Louis Christian Godson, who out of his personal limited resources, had shared foods and other basic necessities with many families that would have otherwise gone to bed hungry for several months. Few other similar encounters that he had later, and prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, continued to increase the heavy burden on him to commence this Christian charitable organization Greater Love.

This charitable organization Greater Love, would be based on the words of Jesus Christ Himself as recorded in the Holy Scriptures (Matthew 25:35—45):

“I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; I was naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothed You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

The philosophy, principles and tenets of the operations of Greater Love will be hinged on the practical demonstrations of the Love of God through the Saving Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, entrenched further by the Words of Jesus Christ:

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13).