Officials with Lebanon Rescue Mission and Jubilee Ministries have agreed to the sale of the Agape Family Shelter building in the 100 block of South Ninth Street in Lebanon.
The organizations have executed a $425,000 sales agreement for property at 139 S. 9th St., according to Susan Blouch, executive director of Lebanon Rescue Mission, and Ryan Newswanger, CEO of Jubilee Ministries.
“It’s been my prayer all along that hopefully the Lord would orchestrate the sale of Agape, that it would be sold to someone that would continue to serve women in need,” Blouch said. “That’s really kind of been my quiet prayer throughout this whole last year, and the blessing is that prayer has been answered.”
“The timing was just so and it feels like it was God-authored,” Newswanger said. “They’re doing a building project and expanding their ministry, and we started our women’s program about four years ago and that has grown to the point now where we would like to expand. The timing was just perfect. I mean, you couldn’t have written it up any better.”
Blouch said proceeds from the sale will be applied towards the mission’s construction of the new Agape Safe Haven, which is expected to open in March or April of 2027 to serve even more women who need a place to live. Jubilee will take ownership of the current Agape site in January and hopes to open it a few months later to women who have been released from prison.
Read More: Lebanon Rescue Mission shares plans for Agape Safe Haven with community
“A big thing on Sue’s heart is wanting that property to be used for ministry and so it can continue to do that and be much the same type of ministry to women through the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Newswanger said. “To bring hope and restoration and life change to those that we’re serving.”
The sale is, in many ways, a full-circle moment for both organizations. When Agape was founded in 1986, the organizations collaborated on that project in those early years.
“Forty years ago when Agape was opened, Agape was in the early days a joint operation between the Lebanon Rescue Mission and Jubilee Ministries. It’s just fitting and it’s kind of, you know, really a full circle – now that we’ve come to it – moment where we really believe it’s best for us to sell the property,” Blouch said. “It’s wonderful that it’s going to Jubilee Ministries. They will continue to use it to serve women that are coming out of incarceration.”
“It does feel that way, especially around this property, that things have come full circle,” Newswanger said. “We just see that God’s grace is working in both ministries and providing what each one needs at the same time so that both can benefit.”
Blouch said the current Agape is designed to accommodate 10 women and their children and that those individuals will move into temporary housing provided by an area church until Agape Safe Haven opens in 2027. She declined to name the church and location of the residence out of privacy for the women and their children, many of whom are there to overcome the challenges that led to homelessness.
Current Agape Family Shelter residents are tasked with finding a job, paying debts and fines, earning a GED, and connecting with partner organizations to acquire services, such as childcare, according to Blouch. The only change for those individuals come January is where they will live.
“So the women that are in the main house will be moving sometime in January, let’s call it a transitional location, and we’ll continue to serve women during 2026 while the new facility is being built,” Blouch said. “We’ll just be doing it in a transition location until the new facility is up and running. It’s a partnership with a local church that’s allowing us to utilize their personage to serve women, so it’s an exciting new partnership and gives us the opportunity to turn the main house over to Jubilee.”
Newswanger said Jubilee will install information technology and its computer network at Agape with hopes of opening its doors to residents a few months into the new year.
“We serve women who are coming out of incarceration and who are saying, ‘I want to go to a long-term Christian program to work at changing my life, so that’s who’s coming into our program,” Newswanger said of the 9- to 12-month program. “It’s a program where we’re doing every aspect of life with them.”
The program focuses on becoming self-sufficient, he added.
“There’s, of course, the housing but we’re also doing employment. We’re doing all kinds of life skills, bringing them to a point of self-sufficiency,” Newswanger said. “We’re doing financial management, we have life coaches on staff that are meeting with them every day going through counseling. We’re working with them on broken relationships from their past, but really the bigger thing is just looking at everything through the gospel of Jesus Christ and we believe and have seen that real hope, real change, real joy happens through him.”
Newswanger said the new location will provide an opportunity to serve more women.
“That’s the greatest joy to see is the transformation in women who have typically very rough backgrounds and come from horrific situations,” he said. “Really giving them a place to start over but also all the tools, the support to do that. We’ve seen the need rise in our own ministry and this property is much bigger than what we currently have and so we’re able to serve more women.”
Blouch noted it’s a bittersweet moment for LRM supporters, many of whom have backed the nonprofit, non-government funded organization for many years at the shelter’s current location.
“As volunteers and those who have donated faithfully for 20-plus years to the ministry of Agape Family Shelter, I know that there is a sadness that we’re selling that property,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it’s a building. It was a building that was provided by God to us and we have served and used that facility and cared for it for well over 40 years, but our mission is to serve. We need to be able to serve more (people) because our community needs us to serve more women with children.”
Blouch recently told LebTown during an interview about the mission’s 80th anniversary that there has been a waiting list for the 10 beds at Agape Family Shelter for years. Once the new facility opens in 2027, the new shelter, which is across the street from its headquarters on Bittner Boulevard in Lebanon, will have 100 beds.
Read More: Soup, soap, salvation: Lebanon Rescue Mission thankful for 80-year ministry
LRM is also looking to sell its other two properties near the shelter so its services are centrally located at the Bittner Boulevard location. The mission owns properties at 915 Walnut St. and the Lebanon Free Clinic at 135 S. 9th St., Lebanon.
“The project that we’re undertaking with Agape Family Shelter comes with a significant cost ($8.5 million) and the sale of those three buildings will bring almost a million dollars towards our project,” Blouch said. “The really important thing that will happen is not only will the new building expand capacity but it brings the whole ministry to Bittner Boulevard. That will bring an efficiency and economies of scale that we don’t have now being spread over a six-, seven-block radius. That’s going to benefit us and cost-savings wise long into the future.”
Newswanger said the new home for Jubilee Ministries will benefit women who are eligible to be released after serving their minimum sentence and have no place to go. A prisoner under those circumstances can’t be released unless they meet those requirements and will remain incarcerated until they serve their full sentence.
As both organizations look to their respective futures, they are beyond joy to have arrived at this sales agreement and for the long-standing relationship in spreading the gospel.
“I think it’s important to just emphasize the beauty of the relationship between Jubilee and the rescue mission and that though we are different organizations, we have the same God and are serving much the same population,” Newswanger said. “We view it as kingdom work and it’s just been a blessing to have the partnership over so many years. Glory to God in his perfect timing and working this out for both organizations.”
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