NATCHEZ — Across the country and across the ocean, the Brandt family has put its mission-centered work first in their lives. Now settled in Natchez, the family has opened World Missions Center, which Hans Brandt sees as “a lighthouse for the states of Mississippi and Louisiana.”

The center is in the former Cato’s building in Magnolia Mall, 261 D’Evereux Drive. Both the location and the items that fill the space became available almost miraculously, he said.

The thrift store includes primarily items from the building next door, the former Wal-Mart building, he said.

“The Lord brought us this building, the inventory and the vision to do what we did in Europe,” he said. For about seven years, he and his family set up inner-city missions in Germany, providing food, clothing and whatever was needed by people there, he said.

From Europe, the family moved to Ferriday and worked there for a couple of years before joining New Hope Baptist Church in Natchez, where he became director of missions. From there, he felt moved to open the new mission center, he said.

Brandt has worked in more than one denomination, including Assembly of God and Pentecostal. For now, he considers his work nondenominational — that is, including all denominations, he said.

“The Lord has blessed us to go through every denomination,” he said. “I was saved by an Episcopalian and really thought that my calling would be as an Episcopal priest.”

The World Missions Center is open to help all people in need, he said, no matter how large or small the need may be. “We now have a homeless shelter, a food bank, crisis counseling, single-mom counseling and a family counseling center to counsel youth and teens,” he said.

A simple sanctuary for church services is set up on one side of the building, where services are at 7 p.m. every Wednesday and Saturday.

“We have a prison ministry and a jail ministry, a hospital ministry and a family crisis ministry,” he said.

“We went to Germany as Pentecostal missionaries,” Brandt said.

His wife, Esther Brandt, and their daughters, Stefanie, 17, and Andrea, 13, work alongside him, he said.

The thrift store takes up the largest portion of the building. Brandt said he had hoped the store might help to provide some of the financial needs of the mission. “But instead, it serves more as a tool to draw people here to see what services they need,” he said.

“The Lord has trained us for 16 years to do exactly what we’re doing here,” he said. “We have been homeless. We have been without food and without power. The Lord has shown us that without any of those things, he is still there.”

“One of our callings is to break down denominational and racial barriers,” Brandt said.

The mission has needs Brandt hopes the community will meet, he said. Some of the needs at the mission are folding chairs for the sanctuary, a sound system, clothes racks for the thrift shop, a freezer and refrigerator for the food bank, canned goods and other nonperishable food items, baby and children’s clothes for the single-mother ministry, beds for the homeless shelter and monetary donations to help with overhead costs.

“We want to take care of people’s needs the way Jesus did,” Brandt said. “I need for the churches who have love for the people of the Miss-Lou to get on board with me.”