The owner of a Christian coffee shop with a heart of love for the homeless community partnered with a Colorado church to spread joy among the less fortunate members of their spiritual family days before Christmas.
Nearly 200 men, women, and a handful of children received raffle tickets, Bibles, coffee, homemade soups, clothing, coats, shoes, haircuts, pedicures, manicures, and assistance with recovering lost IDs at Grace City Church in Denver.
It partnered with Jamie Sanchez, owner of The Drip Café and founder of Recycle God’s Love (RGL) ministries, along with dozens of volunteers from various churches to serve people in need.
The coffee shop, considered a lighthouse by many, has previously come under attack from a communist group and LGBTQ+ activists whose members protest outside, where worship of Jesus inside changes the spiritual atmosphere, as CBN News previously reported.
Christian Coffee Shop Targeted by Communists & LGBTQ Activists Delivers Powerful Response
Waiting for the church doors to open, men and women stood outside, knowing that inside God’s love would meet them through volunteers’ offers of prayer, encouragement, and services in practical and spiritual matters. Many, like a woman named Martha, come to most of RGL’s outreaches, leaving filled with hope and encouragement.
That’s an incentive for Sanchez, who, with his late wife Carolyn and sister, first made 20 sandwiches for some of Denver’s homeless in 2012. It was then that RGL responded to the Lord’s invitation to care for His people without homes of their own.
The ministry’s name derives from 1 John 4:12: “We love because he first loved us.” (NIV)
With his new wife, Alena, committed volunteers, sponsors, donors, and partnering churches, Sanchez is reaching greater numbers of people whose needs for faith, hope, and love are the same today as when he began.
“I believe if Jesus were here today, He would be among these people who are cast out from society. People who are kind of looked down upon. These are the kind of people Jesus would be serving,” said Sanchez.
He knows from personal experience – due to his loss of Carolyn to cancer – the need for Jesus’ healing from life’s wounds. Without God’s grace and mercy, trauma and loss worsen to points of hopelessness and homelessness.
Like Jesus, who served needy people and prostitutes by healing physical and spiritual conditions, RGL shares a message of hope, especially where sin carries consequences of homelessness, bondage, disease, and poverty.
“We want to rectify that through the power of Jesus Christ by showing people they can have power over their sin. First off, by telling people they are sinners who need to repent, and that Christ gives authority over sin and death by defeating them,” Sanchez said.
While worship of Jesus at the coffee shop serves as a counter-protest to vocal and persistent opponents of Sanchez’s biblical views on sexuality and marriage, the Christmas outreach is the heart of RGL.
“In reality, the devil wants the focus to be on the protests because he doesn’t want people to see what’s happening here – serving people who need Christ’s love.”
Sanchez continued, “I appreciate you being here to see the service that we’re doing for the community because this is really what it’s all about. The devil wants a distraction because he knows that good things are happening, that people are being brought hope through Christ. And he doesn’t like that, obviously.”
View RGL’s Thanksgiving outreach here: Thanksgiving For The Homeless
In need of a beard trim and haircut, Michael Lehman expressed gratitude to his stylist, Dawn, for her attention to his head and heart. He also gave glory to God for breaking the power of addiction in his life through a Spirit-filled ministry, proven in helping set captives free.
Another man, Wilson, experienced God’s warmth through hot coffee and spicy pozole – staples of his youth in a Latin American home.
A Guatemalan by birth, Wilson lived in southern California, where sin took its toll on him, as well as his wife and children, until he found work and returned to his Christian roots in Colorado. Working and staying at a shelter in Denver, Wilson prays for the Lord’s will in reuniting with his extended family someday.
Prayer for RGL’s ministries, which include discipleship, housing, and employment components in a program called Project Revive, is helping to fulfill the vision of reaching the homeless with Jesus’ love and salvation. During November and December 2025, two ministries rallied around Sanchez, the Drip Café, and RGL with prayer and publicity.
The first, Concerned Women of America (CWA), is encouraging intercession and patronage of the coffee shop. CWA learned about Sanchez and RGL’s discipleship, employment, worship, prayer, outreach and housing ministries from one of its members in Denver.
Karen Pennington, the Colorado director of prayer and action for CWA’s Denver chapter, reached out to Sanchez in November offering her personal partnership and publicity, along with the national organization’s support.
“This story just really grabbed me on several levels,” Pennington said. “The work I do at CWA follows right along with this because we are all about exercising our rights or we are going to lose them.”
CWA Stands with The Drip Café as LGBTQ Activists Seek to Close Its Doors
“We bear one another’s burdens by connecting the dots for other people. This isn’t just a little story; this story has great depth, great purpose. It has the stamp of God all over it. We connect the dots for others and help them see this is telling the truth to the culture in which we live,” Pennington said.
CWA invites members to support RGL through encouragement, financial support, and worship at the coffee shop on the first Friday night of every month.
Another ministry, Pray Until Saturation Happens (P.U.S.H.), featured Sanchez in a broadcast on Rocky Mountain Christian television, where a pastor highlighted RGL and prayed with and for its leader.
Resurrection Anglican Fellowship’s Phil Eberhart, a host of the television program, asked God to pour out His Spirit on Sanchez’s business and ministries during a prayer segment. “In this place where there’s been opposition, we pray that the light would win, that their light would dispel the darkness,” Eberhart prayed.
He also asked God for protection for Sanchez, his wife, and his daughters, and for the salvation of everyone who visits the café.
To volunteer, support, or pray for RGL, Project Revive, or The Drip Café, visit their websites:
