Mrs. Dudley Goes to the ’Hood

When you first meet Kathy Dudley, several things go through your mind: attractive, friendly, middle class—prime suburb material. What does not cross your mind is inner-city ministry. But that is what Kathy Dudley has devoted her life to.

One look down the streets of West Dallas, Texas, tells a familiar tale of urban despair—gangs, drugs, teenage pregnancy, economic decay. Dudley stepped into these streets 12 years ago, launching Voice of Hope Ministries, a holistic outreach of evangelism, youth programs, and self-help initiatives. A wife and mother of two teenage sons, Dudley herself was raised amid an enslaving poverty. As the director of Voice of Hope, it is clear that her kinship with the poor remains intact.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

How do you account for your journey from hopelessness to an active faith in God?

KATHY DUDLEY:

I grew up in Appalachia in a small Virginia town. I was the last of nine surviving children. My dad was a poor sharecropper. When I was five, my father became disabled. He went through a lot of pain and frustration that led him to alcohol, which made him dangerous. By the time I was a teenager, my life was, emotionally, very difficult.

When I was 17, I began working for the welfare department. I felt hopeless. But a lady worked there who invited me to a Southern Baptist camp for teenagers. It was there that I committed my life to Christ. That was the beginning of a total transformation.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

How did you develop a passion for ministry?

KATHY DUDLEY:

After my husband, Sayres, and I were married, he was drafted and went on to join the air force. We were stationed in Massachusetts. Because there was little Christian presence on the base, we decided to begin a Bible study. Several of the men there came to know the Lord and eventually brought other people to the meetings. When we moved to Texas in 1978, we continued to reach out. We soon had homeless people, prostitutes, and all other types of people staying at our home while they tried to get back on their feet.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

When did you realize that this was a full-time ministry?

KATHY DUDLEY:

In 1982 our boys were preparing to start school, and I felt they needed a place to come home to that was more of a refuge. The idea came to me that during the day I could share my faith in a community setting. But by this time, we lived in the suburbs. And so I prayed, "Okay, Lord, I know how to bring home someone who's needy from a doughnut shop; but where are the poor?"

We contacted a pastor who led a ministry to needy people and asked him where we could go. At first he was leery: There we were, a rich, white couple wanting to work with the poor. So he sent us to West Dallas, one of the most impoverished urban areas in the U.S. I imagine he said to himself, "I'll bring these kids into reality real fast."

He connected us with a person who was doing work there, and we began to hang out with him, doing door-to-door witnessing in the housing projects. Every time we went to a new house, the people let us in because they were wondering, What in the world is this white couple doing out here?

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

How did Voice of Hope emerge from these efforts?

KATHY DUDLEY:

We soon realized that we needed to do more than simply share Christ if our message was going to stick. That's when I heard about Voice of Calvary [a community-development ministry founded by John Perkins] in Jackson, Mississippi. I went there for a weekend conference and decided to stay a month.

When I returned home, we got a soccer ball and a Bible and started walking down a street in West Dallas, gathering kids. We told them we wanted to play soccer with them and tell them Bible stories afterwards. This ministry grew fast.

We soon purchased an old school building and turned it into a Christian community center. Today we have youth programs, Bible clubs, tutoring, job training, a dental clinic, and a program for building and rehabbing houses.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

What was it like for you to move into West Dallas?

Very frightening. We moved out of a nice, suburban home into the inner city. We bought a duplex in an integrated and extremely poor neighborhood. It was hard at first, and I cried a lot.

KATHY DUDLEY:

Thankfully, we were not alone. There were another family and a single guy that moved with us. They were the first Voice of Hope volunteers. We were all dedicated, but we were all white. So we were anxious as to how the Lord was going to open the door.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

Your ministry to youth grew quickly. How about your ministry to their

families?

KATHY DUDLEY:

From the start, we insisted on having parental involvement. But a lot of people did not want to be involved. In fact, there was a group of people that was very much against us. They even had meetings to try to force us out.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

Did you ever feel threatened?

KATHY DUDLEY:

Yes. During the time of those meetings, I kept hearing a strange sound from my van, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Two weeks later, I stopped at a stop sign and the back left wheel literally fell off the van. We realized later that someone had loosened the lugs so that after driving awhile my wheel would fall off, and they'd get rid of me. The Lord timed that perfectly, because had I been moving when the wheel came off, it could have been tragic.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

How did you overcome the opposition?

KATHY DUDLEY:

We held our ground. Even during the resistance, the parents let their kids come to Voice of Hope because of what was happening to them here. People in the community would say, "You can tell which kids go to Voice of Hope."

What ended up being the greatest building block was my background. When we'd go visit the kids and their parents and I would start talking about my background, they would immediately identify. It bridged the gap between white and black. So, little by little, the parents began to trust us.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

When you began, all of your staff were white. When did you recognize the need to change that?

KATHY DUDLEY:

From the beginning, our vision was to raise up indigenous leaders. Not only were we going to have to find black staff members, but, ultimately, they would need to be able to take over the ministry. And that's something we're in the process of doing. I'll soon step down and hand over leadership to our business manager, though I will stay on as a board member.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY:

How do you measure your effectiveness?

KATHY DUDLEY:

By looking at the progress of the youth and families who have been a part of Voice of Hope. We've seen a spirit of community developing. Recently, I looked out a window of my home to see a group of older gang members standing on the corner where the school bus drops off our kids. I knew they were hoping to recruit new gang members. Soon the bus arrived and our kids got off. I just sat there and prayed, "Lord, here's the test."

As the kids started home, those gang members kept hollering to them, trying to get their attention, but not one kid responded. Every one of the kids immediately went the other direction, all headed for their homes. That was the last day we saw those gang members in our neighborhood.

I can't say that this is happening ten streets down, but it is happening in our area, because we are creating a sense of community for our kids to grow up in, where they can say no. They can resist the inner city's temptations because their neighbor, their cousin, and their friend is also saying no—because they have a better alternative.

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