NASHVILLE, TN- Our owner and CEO, Kyle Reyes, stopped in at a coffee shop in Tennessee while on business travel. As with many such cafes, the workers had tip jars on the counter, which told customers a little bit about themselves. That was when Kyle met Kayla Cates, a 25-year-old who is making it her life’s mission to spread the Holy Gospel to the underserved community.
Busmeetsministry is a non-profit formed by Kayla in 2023, when she took her love for traveling and for Jesus to make a difference in her community. Her ministry includes the homeless, those living in retirement homes, and incarcerated prisoners.
When Law Enforcement Today reached out to Kayla, we were so impressed by what she is doing and the fact that it melds with our partnership with Pray.com. She told us why she started Busmeetsministry.
“I am very passionate about homeless ministry, retirement home ministry, and prison ministry, as well as creating education opportunities for everyone and helping the overlooked in our community feel seen, heard, and loved by their community, but more importantly, their heavenly Father,” she said.
Kayla said that, unfortunately, many people seek their identity in everything else but Jesus, noting that, for example, some people find identity in astrology, the Zodiac, and tarot cards, yet she feels that they are merely searching for an identity. She said she seeks to “help them understand the truth of Jesus and where true identity comes from.”
The ministry was registered as a nonprofit in October 2024 and has provided food and clothing to multiple people in the homeless community, served residents at a Nashville retirement home, and brought the gospel into local prisons. The organization has also provided supplies to schoolchildren. Kayla told us that Busmeetsministry has provided Bibles to dozens of people, including as far away as the United Kingdom.
“This is part of what we have done in our first year, and I know God has so much in store for the next one,” she told us.
Kayla already has plans to go out into the homeless community in November to hand out Bibles, blankets, hats, gloves, Hot Hands, scarves, socks, gift cards for food, and bottled water. There are also plans to visit retirement homes that the nonprofit has partnered with, giving out handwritten Christmas cards with scripture to every resident. She said she has a team ready to go for next week.
Plans that Kayla hopes to undertake next year include church pop-ups at local parks, featuring a pastor who has volunteered to speak, as well as faith-based support groups, either in-person or online, for those struggling with identity.
“Most of them have been hurt in church, and I want to create a safe space for them to heal from that, and learn what it truly means to find your identity in Christ and live for him,” Kayla said. “I want to get the word of God into as many people’s hands as possible, launch a devotional on staying strong in your faith when God seems far, and start a monthly birthday party event at our local retirement homes to celebrate the lives of the residents who live there.
“But I am just planning and taking steps and letting God call the shots,” she said.
We spoke with Kayla on the phone and asked her why Busmeetsministry?
“The goal is to eventually do travel ministry in RV parks and the like, and also go to events such as when people get together for solar eclipses, festivals, and the like. People are gathering in one place, so I really want to go to those places in the future and be able to minister to them and bring the gospel and help them find the true identity they’re looking for,” she said.
She told us that her current plan is to remain in and around Nashville because her lease continues for another 6 months.
“Once that ends, my goal is to start doing more of the travel stuff than while I’m in Nashville. I’m concentrating on working with prisons, the homeless shelters, and the retirement homes here, trying to make an impact,” she said. “I believe that you can’t go out and share the gospel across state borders if you can’t share it across the street, so I feel called to make that impact in Nashville before taking the ministry across wherever the Lord leads me.”
We were naturally curious why Kayla, at only 25, would feel called to embark on such a ministry.
“I’ve always loved traveling and seeing things, and I wanted to find a way that brought glory to the Lord, and that was where the idea came from to start a travel ministry and help people along the way, meeting their needs while I do that,” Kayla said.
“So I bought an old short school bus that Nashville previously used off a person who purchased it from them. And my dad and I came up with the name Busmeetsministry.
“And we converted this school bus into a camper, and I lived out of that, and got the ministry going, did an internship at a church, and a connections and outreach ministry to learn about what it takes to run a ministry, and about bringing in volunteers and taking care of them well.”
From concept to actually achieving the nonprofit, it took about a year, and she credited the church where she interned for helping her with designs and so forth.
Kayla said she stopped living in the bus last April because she was getting a lot of inventory and didn’t have room in the bus. She said she received over 150 Bibles, so she needed somewhere to store them. She said that her parents are hoping to move to Nashville, so when her lease is up, she’ll have a place to store her ever-increasing inventory while she conducts her traveling ministry.
She said she’s also moved on from the short bus into a van, which is better on gas and easier to drive. She was able to sell the bus to her cousin, who works for the railroad and travels across the country.
Kayla joked that she thought of changing the name of the nonprofit to “Vanmeetsministry” but she has too much invested in the original name to change it now.
We asked Kayla how her traveling ministry has been received, and she said that it has had positive reviews.
“[L]ike I said, 150 Bibles that were donated…well, some from my church, but they were mostly from volunteers who brought in old personal Bibles. Every time I go into a store or like that, there’s a place with a community board, I put up a flyer as long as it’s approved. So far, we’ve gotten to do a lot. Most people are very welcoming,” she said.
“We’re allowed in our women’s prison every Thursday. We’ve been approved by multiple retirement homes in our area to go in whenever we want and just pray. Everybody’s been really welcoming so far and loving what we’re doing.”
She said some homeless people resist any interaction, but she said some are happy for the interaction.
LET asked Kayla whether she plans to stay primarily in the Nashville or Tennessee area, and she said it depends.
“I [would] love to get it as far as God wants to go. I’ve already talked to my lawyer, and he told me whenever I am ready to move to other states, he’ll start the paperwork to make it legal,” she said. “We have people in our Facebook group in other states who want to be part of their ministry in their state, so I’m working on figuring out what that looks like. Do I want to have Busmeetsministry-like groups that meet up in different cities around the world?
“I have hopes of people who are in the group and we’re all going through the same Bible study, and that’s been one thing that’s been in my heart, so I’ve been working through what study I would like to do and getting volunteers from other states who have been asking how they can help, then getting small groups launched out of their churches,” Kayla said.
We asked Kayla whether faith has been an essential part of her life for a while or whether it has come to her more recently.
“So my parents were both Christians, although they weren’t growing up. My parents were married before, and they each had two children, so I have lots of half-siblings. None of them was Christian. For my parents, neither of their marriages worked out. They both found their faith in their mid to late 20s, and accepted Christ after they were divorced,” Kayla said. “They met each other after theta accepted Christ, and so I’ve grown up with married Christian parents, which I’m so grateful for because it is something that my older siblings didn’t have.”
Kayla said she accepted Christ when she was seven and, since then, has volunteered in her church nursery when she was ten, served in church camps and vacation Bible schools, and served in life groups for youth.
“I’ve been a part of almost every single age group serving God since I was little, but it was more when I turned 18 and moved 1,000 miles away from my parents, when I realized that I had to make church a priority. I moved to Nashville when I was 20, and that was when I really started understanding the Great Commission,” she said, “and feeling the calling of ministry in my heart and wanting to learn like when God called the disciples to the Great Commission. Feeling called to make sure every person knows about Jesus and also feels his love. That’s why I wanted to start the ministry, because I feel it’s hard to share the gospel with somebody without also meeting them at their means, especially when people are in prison, or homeless, or maybe in a retirement home.
“Oftentimes, nobody visits and they’ve never even heard of the gospel, and they think they know everything because they’re old enough to be in a retirement home, so sometimes it is hard to bring the gospel in those places,” she continued. The whole goal of our ministry is to make sure everybody has a BIble that want one, but also to show them the love of God while we’re doing that, and maybe saying, ‘Hey, I see you, you need food, or you need clothes, or you need a prayer or someone to listen to you.’ Some encouragement or whatever it is they need to they not only get the Word of God, but also have their needs met and feel the power of God…the love of God in the moment.”
Kayla said her ministry has a Facebook group, which is up to about 195 members, who need to be approved to join the group. She said it’s just a place where she posts group activities, and they also sell waterproof backpacks with their logo as a fundraiser. She also posts pictures of hats, gloves, socks, blankets, and other supplies so people know where their money is going.
The QR codes below can be used to access the ministry's Facebook page, website, or to make a donation to the cause.
The group’s website, www.busmeetsministry.com, has information about the group, and Kayla hopes to get a monthly newsletter on the site. There is also a contact form where people can ask questions about the nonprofit, as well as a donation page. It generates a thank-you letter and a tax-deductible receipt and sends them to their email.
Amazingly, this young woman has started a mission that will positively impact so many lives. At a time when the younger generation is often criticized, Kayla is a shining star. Law Enforcement Today enthusiastically supports this ministry, and we are hopeful we can generate some positive attention (and donations) to this outstanding ministry.
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