Audacious

Gil Michel, pastor of That Church Downtown, drove by the pair of South Bend, Indiana, buildings every day. He watched them slowly decompose, no longer the thriving Deliverance Center Hall and Ministry House of Pastor Bob Bassler. Grass nearly buried the hall, a simple block structure, which huddled beside the boarded-up house.

One day as Pastor Gil passed the Deliverance Center, he received a surprising message from God. “The Lord spoke to me,” he remembered. “I heard, ‘I want you to re-dig the wells of deliverance.’”

Pastor Gil knew Pastor Bob who, prior to his death in 2022, owned the house and hall. “In an extremely challenged area of South Bend, he hung out the shingle,” Pastor Gil said, “To come and get free. People came in from the neighborhood and prayed to be free of demons and drugs.” Pastor Gil felt God’s call to restore the two buildings to once again be a place for freedom and prayer.

MDS volunteers at the Deliverance center in South Bend, Indiana

“It took me a year and three months to find Pastor Bob’s daughter, Shelly,” he continued. “I told her that I was driving by the Deliverance Center and I heard the Lord say, ‘I want you to re-dig the wells of deliverance.’”

She started to cry. “But you need to know,” Shelly told him, “It is in really rough shape.”

Shelly opened the door of the hall to waist deep trash. “Water came pouring in every time it rained. The homeless were living in it,” Pastor Gil said. “The house was the same, except there had been a fire inside. It was bad.”

Pastor Gil explained his vision to his wife, Marketo, a worship minister, and to their friends who suggested tearing down the existing buildings and starting over.  Pastor Gil repeated, “But I feel like the Lord said to me, ‘Restore!’”

In faith, Pastor Gil, Marketo, and the leaders of That Church Downtown started raising money for the renovation. They had a developing vision for a center that was not only a place for deliverance but a training facility for other churches and a house of prayer for the community. The amount of money that began coming in surprised them almost as much as God’s call to restore the property. But the hall and house continued to deteriorate and suffered multiple break-ins.

The Ears of Jesus

In July 2025, Pastor Gil and Marketo traveled to an Evana conference in Ohio. On the way, Pastor Gil said to Marketo, “I hope we make a connection here at this conference. I cannot go through another winter like this. Maybe we’ll meet someone who does construction or something.”

At the conference Pastor Gil ran into Maurice Stutzman, MDS Region 2 Secretary/Treasurer, who struck up a conversation.

Maurice remembered, “I said, ‘Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?’”

“Then Pastor Gil went into the idea of what he was trying to do in South Bend,” Maurice said. “He said that he heard that there might be someone at the conference that he could talk to who could help him out.”

Rollie Ulrich, Indiana/Lower Michigan Chair at the time, described Maurice’s interest in Pastor Gil and the Deliverance Center as, “Sometimes we need to be the ears of Jesus.”

Maurice introduced Pastor Gil to MDS and invited him to attend an MDS seminar led by Lawrence Mathews, Volunteer Development Coordinator. Lawrence gave Pastor Gil details about MDS and Pastor Gil explained the vision and needs of the Deliverance Center. Lawrence told him, “It’s not exactly what we do, but this is a disaster of sorts. I can’t guarantee that we can help you. But I can guarantee we will follow up.”

Maurice remembered, “Pastor Gil looked like a big weight was lifted off his shoulders. As if there was someone who could really help. Finally!”

A Call

Pastor Gil said, “One day we were driving through Elkhart County and Rollie called.” Rollie called to set a date for an August 25 MDS assessment of the property.

Rollie arrived at the Deliverance Center with a small team, among whom were Darin Bontrager, Regional Operations Coordinator, and Joe Schwartz and David Whetstone, members of the Amish community.  They investigated a formidable challenge including the hall’s flat roof that was leaking badly.

Pastor Gil said, “They came. They looked. And in good Mennonite fashion, they didn’t say a whole lot. They made a couple more visits assessing everything.”

“We were kind of hoping the engineer would condemn the place,” Joe grinned. “The block building was filled with trash. But the engineer said that the structure was okay. The reason behind it, the use, their church outreach, that was the driver for us.”

Rollie said, “We only need three pillars for a local project. Meaningful work. Good volunteers. And the money. Was it a typical MDS project? No. Was it a need in the community? Yes. It is exciting when the local Unit can provide projects that aren’t disaster related. Our mission statement,” he said, “Is to provide hope.”

Pastor Gil said that in the end Rollie told him, “Let’s start with the block hall. That is doable. If you can raise the money, you’ve got free labor.”

Rollie said, “Darin Bontrager helped our Unit think about the work and then move forward. I believe Jesus said, ‘Yes.’  And we needed to say, ‘Yes.’”

Demolition Order

Then Pastor Gil received a notice from city of South Bend, “If the roof and outside of the house are not considerably improved, we will put in an order of demolition in September.”

Pastor Gil challenged that decision.

City leaders said, “Prove to us why we should we not tear this building down.”

Pastor Gil told them, “We have plans for this building.”

They said, “Do you know anything about that neighborhood?”

Pastor Gil responded, “That’s exactly why we want to rebuild there. But there’s no way we can do that by September.”

They said, “We’ll give you an extension to January 9, 2026.”

Restoration

MDS volunteers at the Deliverance center in South Bend, Indiana

Pastor Gil said, “All this time natural sun, water, and snow were pouring in. When we got ready to do the hall roof, we had about $8,000, which was to us a miracle. We were able to buy the materials in October 2025.”

Rollie said, “Pastor Gil had the funds and a deadline from the city. We had the people. The exciting thing was the Amish, and the English people were working right alongside each other. That’s pretty typical of the Indiana/Lower Michigan MDS Unit.”

The MDS group tackled the inside and roof of the hall. David Whetstone said, “We got all the metal on in one day, with six or eight volunteers.”

Dayton Frey, Indiana/Lower Michigan Chair, helped on that construction day. “I stayed on the ground,” he smiled. “It was good to participate in the group that was there. We worked well together. We did some work inside to clean up the place, gutting it out so that they could put up walls.”

MDS efforts to reclaim and reroof the hall became a crucial catalyst for additional volunteers and funds. A separate group of Amish volunteers began working on the house.

Pastor Gil said, “We kept doing Facebook Live and fundraising. People gave $50, $100, $5,000.”

“Now, after the hall roofing was paid, we had $26,000 in the bank to work on the house. One day in the middle of a snowstorm seven Amish men were on the roof of that house. They put on the whole roof that day. Next thing I knew the siding was up.”

Non-traditional MDS Efforts Benefit Unit

This grassroots MDS project is exactly what Dayton Frey says their Unit is looking for. “In the past seven to eight years we haven’t had a lot of disasters. How do you keep MDS alive and aware without the disaster? I think it is in looking for projects that have the same feel as an MDS disaster response. It is in working with a church or not-for-profit on projects like a local house fire.”

Deliverance Center repair project complete

Joe Schwartz said, “We are farmers. There’s lots of times that I’m more rich with my time than with my money. If there’s a chance to help out, I like to do that.”

David Whetsone, who has served on a number of MDS locations, said, “If you go to MDS, you just come home and appreciate what you have.”

Dayton Frey adds, “I am hoping that local projects also give people that don’t feel that they can volunteer for a week, the chance to volunteer for a day.”

God is Doing This

A woman named Angie stopped along the sidewalk to survey the progress on the Deliverance Center, “I was saved here a long time ago,” she said. “I am so glad some good is happening in this place. God’s going to do something good here again,” she declared with conviction.

Pastor Gil said, “I hope this story offers hope to pastors, evangelists, and frontline ministers who are many times constrained by finances and resources that never seem to reach them. This work can feel audacious and hard, but God has heard my heart’s cry and God is going to answer. The Lord is at work. The Lord is doing this!”

Elaine Maust is a writer, spiritual director and retired pastor.  A transplant from Mississippi, Elaine now lives with her husband, Duane, in Michigan’s Thumb.