Forward in Christ
A Ministry for Everyone Sharing God’s Love Through Community Service
Ana Mochoge couldn’t see an end to the line of cars queuing to enter the parking lot of the Dallas First Seventh-day Adventist Church. She was told they extended from the service road out onto the highway, just north of downtown Dallas. Mochoge and a team of volunteers were hosting a drive-through event to provide free toys and children’s clothing to families in need. It was nearing Christmas, and 2020 had been a tough year for most. The giveaway was a fresh take on God’s Closet, a ministry Mochoge brought to Dallas First. “We hadn’t been able to provide our normal program of having people come into our facilities to ‘shop’ for the items they needed because of the pandemic. We wanted to continue the program, but wanted to do it in a safe way for our community. We took some time to plan and came up with a drivethrough shop,” says Mochoge. Mochoge has always had a passion for working with children and providing for their needs. She loves her work as a teacher, educating third and fourth graders at Dallas Christian Academy. Mochoge had come across an article about God’s Closet by chance while vacationing out of state in 2016, and
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realized it was a ministry that would perfectly fit the needs of her Dallas community. God’s Closet is a community engagement ministry of the North American Division’s Adventist Community Services department. It was founded in 2009 by Merryl Tschoepe and now has 42 chapters across North America and Australia. “I told my husband, “How awesome would it be to start something like that in Dallas. At the time there was only one chapter in Texas, in San Antonio. After discussing it with my pastor, I was able to speak to Merryl. She was excited and told me, ‘It’s going to be a process but we’ll go through it step by step,’ and we were able to host our first event in 2017,” she says. One of the major steps in setting up a ministry such as this is having consistent donations of clothing and goods. For Dallas First, the donations mainly come from two local consignment shops. Approaching local businesses to ask for donations was definitely stepping outside of Mochoge’s comfort zone, but seeing the need in her community drove her to push past that discomfort. “We now have an ongoing relationship with these shops and pick up their donations every week. We’re so
