Pastor lives on billboard to raise money for charity
Published: September 8, 2003
A local pastor has made a temporary home 25 feet above the street in a fund-raising effort for children in Africa.
Brian Henley, a children’s pastor at Mount Hope Church, began his weeklong stay atop a billboard near Interstate 96 in Lansing on Sunday. His goal is to raise $100,000 toward food, AIDS awareness, education and building schools and orphanages for children in Africa.
“Here in the U.S., we’re born into privilege,” Henley told the Lansing State Journal for a Monday story. “Over there, they don’t have a choice. There’s AIDS, hunger; so many things affect the kids.”
Henley is part of a statewide fund-raising effort by five children’s pastors from the Assemblies of God-Michigan District. Each pastor is spending the week at a different site, such as a billboard or on a roof.
Henley’s billboard features his picture and a telephone number that people may call to make a donation.
“I know this is what God told me to do,” Henley said. “We have a great community in Lansing, and I think people will jump behind us.”
Henley, 25, lives in Lansing with his wife, Kasha, and their daughter, Jordyn, 3, and son, Gabriel, 1. He said he wanted to raise money by doing something that hadn’t been done and involved risk.
“The risk for me is just a portion of the sacrifice African children make every day,” he said.
Members of Mount Hope Church will support Henley by bringing him food every day and providing nightly security at the billboard. Henley’s billboard is equipped with a 14-foot-square platform, where he has a tent, a portable toilet and a small refrigerator to store water.
“I was a little bit nervous, but I know God’s protecting him,” Kasha Henley said. “He’ll definitely be roughing it.
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