After thousands of backlash targeted towards pastor Joel Osteen, the lakewood church has finally opened her doors to victims of the Hurricane Harvey.
The city of Houston, Texas is going through a hard time. Many have had o evacuate from their homes, properties ruined and lives lost. However in the midst of the pain, Americans have come together as one to support and reach out to victims.
Thousands have opened their doors from store owners to mosques but unfortunately, the biggest mega church owned by Joel Osteen was said to have kept her doors closed and everyone had something to say about it.
After several critics lambasted Joel Osteen and the Lakewood church as a whole, days after the church is said to now be opened for victims of the disaster.
While on an interview with Fox news, Joel was asked why it took this long to open the doors of his church and he had this to say:
“We work with the city all the time and at that time the city was asking for us to use city shelters and when they got filled up, that’s when we said, “hey if you need more room, Lakewood would love to help.”
This is what we’re all about, helping other people. Even back in 2012 with Hurricane Alicia, we housed over three thousand people. So we are all about helping people and helping those that in need.”
In response to the criticism and backlash, the father of two stated,
“I don’t pay much attention to it, my staff told me that there was a fire storm but we don’t run our lives by what happens on twitter.
Many of those people, some of them possibly do not care for us they’re in another state, they’re not in our shoes.
You cant necessarily open your building when it’s very close to flooding. So, we are just set on our mission to help people, love God and love others.
And I just feel like when you do what you’re called to do, you’re always going to have critics.
But we will just keep moving forward and helping people. We have been doing this for 60 years now with my parents here and that’s what Lakewood is all about.”
