His Table Volunteers Serve Physically, Spiritually
From a free, delicious barbecue sandwich to witnessing about Christ, His Table volunteers are feeding people physically, mentally and spiritually.
The volunteers go anywhere they are called to help and a new smoker would enable them to spread their message a little easier.
Volunteers have found a quality smoker, manufactured in Arkansas, which costs $5,000. Volunteers are asking anyone interested in investing in the ministry to consider making a donation. A community fundraiser, featuring good food and live music, will take place from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28, at the Goodman ball park. Donations will be accepted.
Josh Wagner and Jerod Lewis are two local volunteers who have teamed up with local churches to provide thousands of people food and spread the Gospel.
His Table has traveled to Kansas City, New Orleans, Joplin and Springfield, among other places. The team has fed law enforcement members and veterans at the state capital in Jefferson City, and recently fed hundreds of people at the Ozark Orchard Festival in Goodman.
“It’s a great way to minister to others,” Wagner said. “Sometimes our budget allows us to serve hot dogs. Sometimes, we have 500 pounds of chicken.”
Countless friends and family members have physically and financially invested in the ministry. Some volunteers have cooked until 3 in the morning, slept on dirty parking lots and got back up to help serve. Others have worked behind the scenes, taking calls for donated foods and then picking up that food.
Still others have continued to pray for the ministry.
Volunteers have a lot of the manpower, as well as trailers, tables, chairs, grills, canopies and other tools to make the cooking trips happen.
But the ministry needs a smoker that can be taken wherever volunteers need it. Most of the time, volunteers have borrowed smokers here and there, for which they are extremely grateful.
“We have great partners and have borrowed smokers from First Community Bank, Arvest Bank and Bill Andrews,” Wagner said.
Yet having their own smoker would help them grow as a ministry and be more readily equipped.
“It would give us a little bit more freedom to just go,” he said. “It would make it easier to respond and love on those communities, in time of need.”
Volunteers want to spread the Gospel, love their neighbors and provide some delicious barbecue. They find places to live out their mission by various ways. Sometimes volunteers respond to disaster areas. Sometimes it’s finding an impoverished neighborhood. His Table volunteers also serve their local communities and provide food for events in Neosho, Pineville and Goodman.
Still, other trips are brought about by friends who call and say, “Let’s go feed these people,” or by partnering with a pastor in Kansas City, who invites the volunteers to serve his neighborhood.
“If we can help our community, and love on our people, we’re in it 100 percent,” Wagner said.
Wagner became involved in the ministry five years ago. He and others felt that if you “fire up grills and do something outside” you can get folks’ attention and help serve them.
“A lot of people don’t hear the Gospel, so we go to the streets. We love on them and they see that we are normal people and that we are flawed.”