Beyoncé and Kelly Come Home to the Church That Raised Them
Some homecomings are bigger than a concert. On Tuesday, Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland and Tina Knowles stood together in Houston to cut the ribbon on the Knowles-Rowland House, a new home for people who have lived through chronic homelessness. Beyoncé’s daughters, Blue Ivy and Rumi, were right there with them.
The building has a story of its own. It first opened in 1999 as the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a gym and youth center paid for with earnings from Destiny’s Child’s very first single. Hurricane Harvey damaged it in 2017, and a fire hit it again in 2021. Now, after an $8.4 million redevelopment, it has been reborn as 31 units of permanent supportive housing, and 16 of those units are designed for residents with mobility or sensory impairments.
This is more than a set of apartments. Residents will have case management and mental health counseling on site, along with substance abuse treatment, life skills training and nutrition help through Temenos Community Development Corporation. The project is led by Bread of Life, the nonprofit connected to St. John’s Downtown Church, which Pastors Rudy and Juanita Rasmus founded in 1992. Harris County put about $7.2 million in federal pandemic recovery funds toward the work, and Houston Mayor John Whitmire came out to celebrate alongside Congressman Christian Menefee and Commissioner Rodney Ellis.
This was not just any church partnership. St. John’s Downtown, the church behind Bread of Life, is their home church, the place where they grew up. It is also where Beyoncé chose to be baptized. She has said that decision was her own, and that she made it because St. John’s was where she felt the Spirit. In her remarks, Beyoncé thanked Pastor Rudy Rasmus and First Lady Juanita Rasmus for covering her and her family in prayer over the years, and she spoke about how grateful she is to give back to the community that raised her. You could feel that this day meant something to all of them. The ceremony also announced the Rudy and Juanita Rasmus Food Distribution Center, a fitting way to honor the pastors who have fed Houston for more than thirty years.
What I love most is that the money from a song two young girls sang in the late nineties is still blessing people today. Beyoncé and Kelly have been sisters in every way but blood since they were children, and Ms. Tina helped raise them both. To see the three of them come back home and open the doors for people who need a place to start over is the kind of legacy that cannot be bought. The world has watched them shine for a long time. Tuesday, they used that light to make room for someone else.
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”
Matthew 25:35 (KJV)
