Historically, Teen Challenge Newport had been reaching out to the Homeless/ Vulnerable/ Addicted of Newport for almost 20 years under the leadership and pioneering work of Stuart & Caroline Johnson. Through this work it was identified that Newport needed it’s own charity committed to address local problems. This was the birth of Eden Gate. Eden Gate was founded by Stuart & Caroline Johnson in November 2013 who were central to establishing the charity in Newport.
Eden Gate continues to carry out the work established by Teen Challenge Newport with dedication to address local needs.

‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

²⁴ “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, ²⁵ and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. ²⁶ From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

²⁷ “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸ For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ ²⁹ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

³⁰ “God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. ³¹ For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”

(Apostle Paul, Athens)

In the face of tragedy, we have two options.

We can decide that God is not who he says he is. We can let our questions keep us from experiencing his transforming love and sustaining grace. We can trust our doubts more than we trust our Creator.

Or we can decide to have faith in our Father even when we don’t understand him. The harder it is to trust God, the more we need to trust God.

Today’s secular worldview is cohesive and consistent only in that it views life through the prism of the self. Our ultimate value is whatever makes us happy. Dwelling on the sufferings of others doesn’t seem to help them and only saddens us. This era of constant access to the world has actually accomplished the opposite—it’s made us less attentive to the world. If the news doesn’t make us happy, we turn it off.

By contrast, one way the Christian worldview is cohesive and consistent is that it views life through the prism of the other. We’re taught to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Loving God and loving our neighbor are intertwined (Matthew 22:37–39). Jesus identifies himself with those in need: what we do for them, we do for him (Matthew 25:40).

If we value people in pain as Jesus does, we can never be callous to their suffering. Every victim of violence—and every perpetrator—is someone for whom Jesus died (Romans 5:8). The answer to compassion fatigue is not less compassion—it’s the power of the Spirit. The first “fruit of the Spirit” is “love” (Galatians 5:22). The ability to care for those in crisis comes ultimately from Christ.  (Denison)

In John 11 Jesus arrived at Bethany after Lazarus had died.  Martha and Mary both approached Jesus with exactly the same words, “If you had been here my brother would not have died.”  Jesus did not reply with identical statements. He gave Martha practical hope, but Mary emotional empathy. Jesus knew the people he was caring for and treated them as individuals.

It would be profoundly ineffective to admonish the fainthearted, help the idle, or to encourage the weak.  The fainthearted need care not rebuke. The idle need a change of perspective, not help to carry on as they are.  The weak need practical help, not words.