That’s what Joy Lynn, Moore House Ministry have been doing for 30 years
Murphy – “I’m no saint; I’m as ornery as can be. I’m outspoken, blunt and I have my faults, but I feed the sheep.”
Joy Lynn is sitting in her dining room, the walls heavy with framed photographs, the formal table set with delicate china.
“As far back as I can remember, I took people in. I get them up and running and turn them loose,” she said with a laugh, waving her hand toward the door. Her manicured nails shine with red polish but for her ring fingers, which glitter with silver.
Joy Lynn, founder of Moore House Ministry, a 30-year-old service to those in need, sits in a wheelchair with regal confidence. She’s somewhat confined since breaking her leg in a recent fall.
“I’ve only ever broken any bones twice in my life,” she said, laughing again. “But both times it was catastrophic.”
Her first time, many years ago, happened at the ministry she runs from her house.
“We had an outdoor elevator,” Lynn said, gesturing toward the porch, green with potted plants flowery hanging plants, “and the cable broke.”
The fall shattered both her legs and left her bed-bound for a year. “But I never skipped a food give away,” she said. “I kept the ministry running.”
The whole thing started out simply enough. Joy Lynn and her now deceased husband attended Journey Fellowship church.
“They gave out food once a week and asked if I would come down there and help give it away,” she said, smiling at the memory. “I saw the poorest, saddest people in the world waiting for food, and I just asked the Lord what he wanted me to do.”
The answer came from a call from her pastor. He asked Lynn if she knew anyone in Murphy who might be hungry. If she could come pick up the food and carry it home, she could become a satellite location for the church.
“Now we didn’t have any freezers for the meat, and we prayed for someone to donate a freezer. The next week we had two!” she said, laughing again. “They were behemoths and cost a lot of money to run, but we had them.”
Lynn explained the economic hardships in Cherokee County at that time.
“You’ve got to understand,” she said. “This was at a time when our little factories were closing down. Lots of ladies had grown up assembling clothes, and now they had no job.”
She and her husband put out the word to let people know they had food to give away.
“There wasn’t any Facebook back then,” Lynn said.
On their first day, they had people lined up down their driveway and all the way down the street.
“There were so many people – 100 or 150 at a time,” Lynn said.
And so Moore House Ministry was born.
“It was easy to name,” Lynn said. “I worked as a nursing assistant to Mr. and Mrs. Moore. I loved them, and they loved me.”
Mr. Moore, who died several years after his wife, left his house and property to Lynn.
“I was standing out under that shade tree,” Lynn said, pointing to a welcoming tree on the expansive front lawn, “and his daughter told me what he had done. I couldn’t believe it.”
Mr. Moore gifted her the house out of gratitude that she cared for him and never put him in a nursing home.
“They were very giving people. Secret givers, like the Bible says to do,” Lynn said. “I know, because I was the one driving the check over to the widows and other folks in town.”
She named the ministry to honor the Moores.
Soon, food giveaways expanded into clothing and linens.
“A couple from Venice, Fla., sends boxes of shoes and clothes and towels every month. We don’t have any rules,” Lynn said, referring to many churches’ philosophy of limiting the quantity or requiring paperwork to receive food. “Jesus didn’t have any rules, so we don’t either.”
Her ministry is open seven days a week for anyone with a need.
“They can come in and choose whatever they want,” Lynn said. “We try to build up, not tear down. We don’t want a person to feel less. ‘There but by the grace of God.’ We never take their dignity.”
For years, Moore House gave away 48,000 pounds of potatoes during the harvest season.
“This Methodist church said if I could pay for the fuel and a truck driver, they would send the potatoes,” Lynn said. She found the money, and a semi dumped them in front of Rib Country.
“It was vacant at the time,” she said with a laugh. “People came in droves for those potatoes.”
True to her belief in no restrictions, people could take as many potatoes as they could carry away.
“People love potatoes,” Lynn said. “Back in the day, our Murphy mountain folks lived on fried potatoes, pinto beans and cornbread. We didn’t have one potato left.”
The potato dump was so popular, they expanded to Andrews the following year.
“Steve Jordan is an alderman in Andrews,” Lynn said. “He owned a gas station there and told us we could dump the potatoes there. Well, that big truck came in and dumped the potatoes and drove away before we realized we were at the wrong gas station!”
She erupted in laughter at the mistake. “The guy who owned that station was so nice about it. I wish I knew his name. He just let it go. I mean, we weren’t going to put all those potatoes back in the truck!”
Lynn recently celebrated a birthday, but has no intention of sharing her age. Her brother came to visit and put a sign up in the yard, announcing it to the world.
“I told Tommy he had better get out there and take that sign down,” she said with her familiar laugh.
Lynn concedes she is elderly, but has no intention of slowing down.
“What is down time? I can’t stop,” she said. “It’s part of my life. I just know if anybody calls, I get up and do it. I couldn’t sleep knowing a child might be hungry. I couldn’t close my eyes.”
Moore House Ministry remains open to serve those in need seven days a week. They close at dark each night. They also accept donations.
“If 100 people gave $10 a month,” Lynn said. “I could pay all the bills. It doesn’t take much.”
Details: 828-361-5121.