‘I Felt the Nudge of the Holy Spirit’: Pastor Camping Out in Frigid Cold for 100 Days Shows True Power of Listening to God By Billy Hallowell for Faith Wire
Pastor Corey Brooks is spending the next few months camping out atop a building on Chicago’s South Side, braving the frigid, unforgiving air and foregoing the comforts of his home — all for an incredible cause.
Brooks, who runs Project H.O.O.D., an organization that seeks to empower and equip individuals and families, is on a mission to help curb chaos, gun violence, and death, embarking on a faith-fueled mission to raise $35 million to create a youth and opportunity center.
Why Brooks Is Camping Out
“We have a very unsafe environment, especially for kids,” Brooks told Faithwire from atop the roof on which he’s camping out. “They can’t even go and play in parks and outside. Just before we took this call there was a shooting in some projects that are right behind me, and it was on the playground.”
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The preacher said a 30-year-old man was shot and others were wounded in an area where kids should be laughing and playing; instead, tragedy has overshadowed the should-be sacred place of childhood joy.
“That’s the type of environment we’re living in. We need a safe place for kids. We need a safe place for young adults to go,” Brooks said. “Not only just a safe place, but a place where they can learn a trade, a place where they can get counseling for trauma, a place for arts and theater and sports and entrepreneurship and tech classes.”
And that’s precisely why Brooks is spending 100 days living outdoors in the cold, raising awareness and attempting to bring in the tens of millions needed to create this community center — a location he believes could help transform the lives of young and old Chicagoans, alike.
Watch Brooks speak with Faithwire from a frigid, Chicago roof:
