Since I started working there in December of 2019, there has been no question in my mind that the Buffalo City Mission is exactly where God wants me.

And God now continues to show me things that absolutely blow my mind when it comes to the connections that I have to the Mission generationally, in my family and in ministry.

Let’s take a short stroll through some of these things, shall we?

I was looking for a new job toward the end of 2019, and scrolling through Indeed I saw a job posting for “Custodian” at the Mission. It caught my attention because my father was a custodian at Calvary Baptist Church in Bristol, PA when he was a ministry student. So since I was a ministry student, I thought, how cool to follow in his footsteps in a unique way?
After I clicked on the posting, directly underneath it was the posting for Case Manager at the Mission, which I had experience doing, so I sent in my resume right away.

Shortly after a few rounds of interviews, I was hired!

When I began in December of 2019, my office was in the old chapel, where I remember my father used to preach when I was a teenager.

I remembered that my Dad’s assistant pastor in the 90’s was a chaplain there too, and Frank- my Sunday school teacher was actually a resident at the Mission!

As I’ve began my new role, I have been researching the spiritual history of the Mission, and I have uncovered many other connections to my family and my dad’s ministry that I had no clue of.

One of the men that used to visit our church a lot and who was a wonderful family friend when I was a kid was Stanley Chao, who was also a chaplain at the Mission. He also was a resident at the Mission in the late 60’s when he arrived to Buffalo from NYC.

My Dad’s assistant pastor wasn’t just a chaplain, he also served as executive director of Cornerstone Manor (our shelter for women and children) and interim executive director of the Mission.

The pastor that served at my Dad’s church before we arrived was a chaplain at the Mission for decades, and also served as executive director for a while. He was responsible for Stanley and many other men from the Mission coming to our church.
They used to run a van from the Mission to our church so that the men could attend services (and had to bring back a bulletin to prove they were there) and to get baptized!

The ladies auxiliary for the Mission in the 80’s and 90’s was basically all the women from Dad’s church, too!

What a blessing to find all of these connections- and then TODAY happened. 😂

Mind blown.

My colleague Heather and I were elbow deep in organizing all of the documents and pictures from the Mission’s history, and came across a box full of old newsletters. I was sitting in a chair and she was standing to my left, reading the front of a newsletter from 1982. I happened to look up at her, and started to read a small story on the back of the newsletter, welcoming Pastor Bud as the first ever Director of Discipleship at the Buffalo City Mission.

“No way!”, I said. “This is unbelievable!”

“What?!”, Heather asked.

Guess where Pastor Bud is from? Calvary Baptist Church in Bristol, PA- the same exact church my father was a custodian at. It was also the church Dad got ordained in, and our family arrived at the church just a few months before Pastor Bud left to come to Buffalo to answer the Lord’s call to go to the Mission.

Mom and Dad both remember him, but had no idea where he was heading.

There are hundreds of churches in between Buffalo and Bristol, PA, and yet here is another “God-wink”; God chose to bring a pastor to the Mission from the very church my father began his ministry in!

How does this even make sense?!
It doesn’t- to our small, human brains; but to our King Jesus, the creator and orchestrator of all of creation, it’s simply part of His beautiful plan!

I’m not sure what the future holds, but I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Lord has me at the Mission for a very specific reason, and continues to show me bits and pieces of His blueprint that got me there to affirm it to me.

Thank You Jesus for trusting me with what You have given me to do; I won’t let You down!

May You be glorified in all that we do at Your Mission, and may we continue to be Your hands and feet as we build Your family and Kingdom!

#generationalblessings #family #ministry #buffalocitymission #BCM #grateful

Brian Wheeler

#beMORE #doMORE #inHIM