Missionary Partner: Convoy of Hope

hey everyone jordan hansen here from mesa church in orange county california and i am super excited about our guest today as you know we've been doing interviews with our missionary partners and one of the incredible missionary partners that mesa church financially partners with prayerfully partners with is a relief organization called convoy of hope and convoy of hope is one of my absolute favorite organizations on the face of this planet um because they are doing so much good on this earth and so to describe some of the work that they do and just to get to know a little bit about this incredible organization convoy of hope um jeff neen who i'm not even necessarily sure of what your official title is but i just know you're the man at convoy of hope and you're only one of the guys so what is it that you've been there a long time i've been with convoy for over 20 years now or about 20 years and my title right now is national spokesperson and special assistant to the president so i work with hal donaldson a lot uh i do a lot of our uh radio tv these type of interviews have become really popular this last year and how is the president for those that don't know that's right how's the president and founder of convoy of hope and uh so this this past year we've done a lot of zoom meetings a lot of uh be live you know all these different types of recording uh via computer and it's been an interesting i always like that personal interaction but this has been an interesting way to do it and get to see and talk to people well the cool thing is you're not limited by geography so yeah kind of assuming you are at headquarters in springfield missouri is that correct well right now i'm at my house because it's it's uh we just got into the evening here so are you in missouri i am i'm in spot based in springfield missouri where our headquarters are and i've lived here for about 26 years now so you are within driving distance of an andes custard absolutely i'm actually within driving distance of about four of them oh goodness we are spoiled here we've got one about probably about three miles from my house goodness goodness that is that is uh that's dangerous that sounds dangerous that's not something that that convoy of hope brings to the brings to the nations andy's so can you describe to us what convoy of hope does i said earlier that it's a relief organization but how did it get started what is its mission what is it that convoy of hope does how is it making a difference in the world it's you know that's a very complicated question and i've always searched for a really simple answer to it and it finally came up with it a while back hal said this one day in passing but uh convoy of hope we use food to share the gospel i mean that that's it in a nutshell everything we do revolves in some way around food and around sharing the gospel we want to see people come to jesus uh we got started uh many many years ago and actually started in california up in the bay area i had no idea yeah hal uh grew up as the son of a preacher there were four kids when hal was 12 years old his mom and dad got in the car went to a left to go to a church business meeting and on the way they were hit head on by a drunk driver his father was killed instantly his mom was rushed to the hospital spent several months in the hospital and it was about a year before she could work again and those four children were taken in by a family from their church and people would come by and they'd leave bags of groceries on the on the porch or they would bring clothes or they'd take the kids to the store doing different things like that to help them and and those kids that were very you know middle class uh their dad pastored a small church so they weren't wealthy at all but they they went from being you know somewhat middle class to being poor and it was a shock to them and the way people befriended them and were kind to them were compassionate it had such an impact on them that hal decided you know at some point in his life he decided i am going to do for other people what these folks have done for me and it just made a huge impact in his life i mean the the the impact of convoy of hope you know from this simple testimony is just so powerful to me you know the stories that that that god does in us and then it rebounds can you describe the worldwide impact just give us some statistics and i'm not trying to ask you guys to brag but you guys are playing a major you you are seeing some massive a massive amounts of of just people's lives being changed because of the good that that you are doing and a ton of churches including ours get to partner with maybe describe the worldwide efforts a little bit sure and and i will you you said you don't want us to brag and we don't uh one of the things that hal stresses i want you to brag but for people who are listening you know i don't want you to think that we're bragging but the reality is you guys are doing a lot of good work and i want people to know about it right and that's it's interesting one of the things that hal stresses is that uh we're to be humble we're to lead with humility and and for us it's not about all these great things that convoy has done but it's about all these great things god has done and he's allowed us to be a part of it uh one of the statistics that just rocks my world every time i hear it is we've been in existence for about 26 years now and during that time we've served 163 million people and when you think about that i mean it's just phenomenal 163 million people have had the chance to hear about jesus have had the chance to have a life change and encounter uh things that we do we have a children's feeding program and we're feeding about 377 now 387 000 children every day in 18 different focus countries and then what happens is we go into these focused countries start this children's feeding program and then it branches off it becomes you know the children's feeding program gets uh established and then we say well these kids have mothers and a lot of these mothers don't have jobs they're not working they they can't find work they don't know how to to do anything so we started a women's empowerment program and we started teaching these mothers how to start their own businesses and we've had several thousand we're probably close to about twenty thousand women now that we have gone that have gone through this program and that we have given them seed capital to start their own business and so so they are now taking and again it goes back to food they're able to feed their own kids you know we've been feeding them in school but now they can feed them at home yeah and then one of the other things that branched off of that was we started with farmers and we thought you know what if we can teach people how to grow their own food that's even better than us feeding them we don't want to be that organization that just throws food off the back of a truck we want to be an organization that lifts people up gives them a hand up instead of a handout and sometimes it starts with a handout but we really want to develop it into a hand up so so same thing we started in haiti shortly after the earthquake with 30 farmers and now we're we're up to somewhere 15 16 17 000 farmers that have gone through this program learned how to improve their yields learned how to grow better crops healthier crops different things like that and and they're not only feeding their families but they're selling their food at market now so it's it's we try to keep that ball moving and keep things going like that and that's just on the feeding side then we've got the whole disaster response effort community outreach events you know all sorts of different things that we do and really the exciting thing from my perspective is everything we do revolves around the local church so when we're feeding kids in a country it's a lot of times through a school that's provided by a local church when we're doing things in this country having community outreaches all the volunteers are provided or the majority of volunteers are provided by local churches when uh this this year during the past year during covet we started out how how set this goal and he said i want to provide he said when something like this happens when the pandemic happens we can either circle the wagons and protect what we have or we can launch out and do something big and trust that god's going to meet those needs and and that's what we did and during covid we had our best financial year ever but i truly believe it's because of what what he decided to do he said we're going to provide 10 million meals we're going to feed 10 million people or 10 million meals across the country and and so when he said that i got to admit i i didn't have that kind of faith i thought oh my gosh what are we going to do how are we going to do that you know i i believe in doing it i believe in getting out and trying but i didn't know for sure if we would do it well we hit in a matter of weeks hit the 10 million mark and then it was 20 and then it was 50. then it was a hundred and we ended up that year providing over 200 million meals to people that were that were affected by covid and and did it all through the local church the local church was our distribution point for all of those meals and to be able to do that it you know there wasn't any way that convoy of hope could do it there wasn't any way we were smart enough or had enough money or you know had what it took to do that but it was because god put his hand on it and said okay you stepped out in faith i'm gonna bless that and i just love the story of uh when you tell hal's story you know the impact of um of someone who has been in a situation where they needed food and meeting people at their point of need because like you said um it's the idea is that yes they need food but the the the reality is you want to reach people with the gospel and but if if you're hungry it's really hard to focus on the message you know it's like my teachers know that and so just the the concept of all those haiti farmers who have been impacted by convoy of hope not just from receiving but also receiving information and knowledge and training um maybe you could speak to the disaster relief component a little bit that was i think the maybe the first interaction that i had with convoy of hope i was pastoring in springfield missouri and there was a tornado that ravaged joplin missouri and it was crazy and i remember convoy of hope was one of the first organizations that were there and then i just feel like every hurricane that has hit i feel like i see in the news that convoy of hope is if it's not the second or third it's it's probably the first organization on site handing out water handing out emergency supplies and i just think it's such an incredible testimony to have this christian organization funded by private mostly like and mostly churches like churches and individuals and trusts and and it's what an incredible testimony maybe talk to us a little bit about the disaster relief component of making sure people have supplies yeah it's interesting you mentioned joplin because uh this week is the 10th anniversary of the joplin tornado and so there's been a lot going on last saturday we were down at uh in joplin uh there were it wasn't really a celebration but yet it was uh joplin has recovered from that in a mighty way and they were celebrating that fact but also remembering the people that lost their lives and people that lost businesses and homes and things like that but we got started probably oh about 1999 i think we responded to a hurricane that hit central america we were active down there in el salvador at the time so we we did something there and we've never done it before so you just kind of launch out and try it and it was well received people responded to it so the next time something happened we did it again and we responded in a small way to to several uh natural disasters along the way well then in 2004 um there were four hurricanes that hit florida just bang bang bang bang in one in a one month period and uh we went down and we responded to that uh george bush was president of the time george w bush he came to our site saw what we did and we got our first real national media attention um and then shortly after that the end of 2004 was when the southeast asia tsunami hit and so we responded to that one of our board members pastors in sri lanka which is a small island nation just off the coast of india and so we went to sri lanka and they had been hit just horribly hard and we went and we provided a lot of help and hope and food and supplies there we went into indonesia did the same thing there we actually got into an area called aceh in indonesia which is in like northwest uh part of indonesia and they don't normally allow christians in that part it's it's uh it's very secluded from uh from a visitor standpoint i guess would be a good way to say it but they were hurting they needed help and we were willing to help and so we went in there and it was it was really neat to be a part of of doing that because we didn't go in and proselytize but yet at the same time people would ask you know why why do you come from america to do this and we were able to tell them uh that that this is why and we were able to work with some of the missionaries that were active in parts of indonesia and uh and get some missionary access to that area for for a short period of time but those two big disasters happened and then right on the heels of that in 2005 was hurricane katrina and that's really when our disaster response went to a new level uh we we just we plunged in with both feet i mean we jumped in got active we were sending hundreds of tractor trailer loads of food and supplies and it was so interesting to see how god brought the right people the right time i mean we'd get i got a phone call one day and said hey i know a guy that's uh owns several hotels and he's remodeling his hotels and he has all this furniture can you guys use it wow several tractor trailer loads of furniture that we were able to take down and give to people that you know had lost everything so all sorts of different things like that and then it just just kept progressing and growing and then there seems to be an in you know an increase in natural disasters right now there just seems to be so many going on so we've responded to to hurricanes really all over the world we've been in 126 countries now i think that we've operated we've been in 48 of the 50 states uh hopefully we'll get to those other two soon and and it's just been something to see the way god uses convoy but the way god opens the door for the local church one of the things that we learned early on in disaster response is we're coming into a community that we don't know we don't know people we don't know relationships we don't know businesses we don't have a clue what those local pastors and local churches do so who better to align ourselves with and that's what we do so we'll go in and say for example um one one that i think of immediately is wilmington delaware hurricane michael hit there a few years ago and when it happened we didn't really have a relationship in that wilmington delaware or wilmington north carolina area and so um we we looked around found a pastor found a church and he said yeah sure come on he was thinking you know we'd have a you know a few vehicles and we'd set up and part of his parking lot well i mean we we took over we had like 20 vehicles there tractor trailers with food and forklifts and you know all sorts of we had a command center and a bunk house and a shower trailer and all sorts of different things so when we come in we're pretty much totally self-contained but we like to set up at a local church for a couple reasons they will provide wonderful volunteers who love the lord and are willing to talk to people that have been affected by these disasters and talk to them about jesus uh but the second thing is we really we really understand the fact that we're going to leave you know we get there and we're helping but we're not long term we're there for a season and we're going to do our hardest work during that season we're going to do as much as we can but when we leave somebody needs to be there to continue the work to continue shepherding people to continue being able to lift up the name of christ and that's what the local church does the best and so they come in and they rally around what we're doing and really the local church becomes the hero you know the day comes we close the doors on the trucks and head home but that local church is there and somebody that's been affected somebody that came there and received food and received help the next time they need help the first place they're going to think of is that local church i love it what do you what do you think obviously there's such benefit to any community for a church convoy of hope partnership in that city and that community what are some of the benefits what are some of the stories that you've heard from people who don't have faith maybe they had a bad experience with church or their they would consider themselves an atheist or agnostic how how do they process the church stepping in and and helping in these natural disasters how do they how do they process that from maybe someone from a recipient perspective but also just you know someone who's in the city trying to process like what what's going on here yeah it's it's interesting one of the things i've learned is that people when they've been through a situation like that they want to tell their story so a lot of times the best thing you can do is listen just listen let them talk let them tell their story let them process so they're doing that but then you can also be that you know you're that shoulder to cry on while they tell you their story but you're also that giver of hope that giver of encouragement so you can help them do that um it's it's interesting to see how people that um maybe not don't have a relationship with christ they're not a follower of jesus and you know they they are at wit's end so to speak they they don't know what's next i think one of the biggest things we can do is help them realize okay tomorrow is going to be better than today so if you get through today tomorrow's going to be better and then next day you can get through today tomorrow's going to be better and it it improves as time goes on um but but it's it's interesting to see god at work in all that process uh i just what came to mind was a story of a young african-american girl in houston texas we were uh hurricane harvey hit texas hit the houston area really hard a few years ago and we were responding to that in a in a pretty big way and we we got this story after the fact but there was this young african-american girl living in excuse me living in what what she would she called living in the projects she lived in a uh this big huge apartment complex that was all low income and she was a single mom had a little baby uh this this happened and her neighborhood was just basically flooded in she couldn't leave the net couldn't leave the apartment complex because there was water everywhere and she was low on food was out of diapers didn't know what she was going to do she she panicked and she had had an experience with christ as a as a little kid but had you know just as she grew up just wandered away from it yeah and and she found herself at that point uh praying and she and she prayed and she said god you know i know i haven't i've not talked to you in a while but but i need help i'm in a bad way i don't i'm out of food i'm out of diapers my baby's gonna need changed any minute i've just used the last diaper you know i don't know what i'm gonna do and unless you do something for me you know this may be where it ends yeah and uh it was i think they said less than 30 minutes somebody comes wading through the water with food and diapers comes up and knocks on her door and she just just when they when she opened the door a person standing there and this girl just burst out in tears yeah and and their first the volunteer their first thought was what did i do wrong what you know what what did they do to upset you and you know through the tears she finally told her no what you didn't upset me you were an answer to prayer and so that person got to be there got to encourage her got to help her got to give her food and diapers and and all the things she had just prayed about but she also got to talk to her about jesus and she rededicated her life that night so when you see things like that you you say man that that is the power of convoy of hope and the local church working together that's an amazing story and such an encouragement and honestly an inspiration um it almost you know the thing i was thinking about as you're talking about is just the word salvation so so often we primarily understand and rightly so that salvation is the forgiveness of sins and spiritual salvation but um it people need saving on this earth physically too yeah describe a situation where this girl she needed saved she needed someone to come in and save her physical life and i and it led to spiritual salvation but if if convoy and the church and the partners weren't there at that moment if someone who had responded to the gospel to serve wasn't there at that moment you know just like she said this might be it and what a cool thing to be there for so many millions of people at such a hard time i mean natural disasters and food hunger are um low just puts people in such a low place like their resources are low i remember being in joplin with that tornado and it just felt like no man's land like man there's rules the power lines are down like no one knows what's going on there's total chaos and here comes convoy of hope and sets up sets up base camp and you know gets water out to the community because that's you know primary and then starts you know implementing some some um some help and it's just so cool to see that happening um what's the process for people who want to serve with convoy of hope like what is it how did you get involved with convoy i hope you said you've been with conway for over 20 years i mean listening they're like man i want to work with an organization like that well let's start with volunteering what would it look like for someone uh to volunteer with a con with a uh organization like convoy um there's a variety of ways uh for i think the best way for most folks is to do it through their church because primarily we will work with groups of volunteers from churches rather than recruiting individuals from all over the place so get with your local church your local pastor or your local the missions director at the church whoever it might be and say hey what can we do can we become a group can we uh we have a part of our ministry is called field teams and they haven't done much over this past year because we haven't been able to travel but we we do field teams and i think for 2020 we had over 50 field teams scheduled so that's one you know just about every week going out to some country or some state somewhere in the world who direct your field teams uh matt wilkie i had a feeling you're gonna say matt wilkie i did an internship with um book of hope okay hope and matt was part of that but yeah we'll have to tag him in this interview matt's such a great guy love that yeah and matt does a great job with field teams um and he they they he's got several people he doesn't do all those he's got a wife and kids that he he's got to uh be there for as well but he's got several people on staff on his team that that take church groups out and uh and they they'll go in and i mean it's hard work but boy you talk about seeing something accomplished i've seen them in action uh most recently in puerto rico after after the hurricane hit down there uh it was i mean puerto rico was devastated they were hit so hard and our field teams were in and out in and out in and out down there rebuilding homes uh getting people you know back to a new normal and and just having such an impact so i think that's probably one of the best ways you can also uh go to follow you can send an email to volunteer at convoyofhope.org and that gets your name in the system but but really you have much more impact if you can do it as a group that type of thing or if there's if there's a disaster in your area in your community then you know call us or email us and and let us know that you have a group from your church that wants to get involved and and we'll tie you in with that i love i love just you know giving people the opportunity to actually you know jump in and get involved somewhere yeah for someone who um is listening to this and and maybe they're um they're they're not a believer like um uh do do you get people who don't necessarily uh have a relationship with god who want to partner in some way i mean even financially like do yeah does is that does that happen yeah it does it does and and we've had we've had financial gifts from people that just really like what we do uh they don't have a faith orientation at all but but they like what we do they like they're kind people they're compassionate and they want to help so we've had that happen we've had the same thing with volunteers uh we've had we've had interesting thing that's happened several times now we have had people that came to our community events we'll we'll do these where we come into a community and get together maybe 30 40 maybe even 50 churches from that area that want to do something special and we get them all to work together on this community outreach event and and it'll be uh they'll have games for kids they'll have uh free food they'll have groceries to take home they'll have uh different agencies from that community that work with uh people that are lower income and they can help them sometimes there's a job fair sometimes we have shoes and backpacks for kids all sorts of different things but we've had people that came to those as a as a guest what we what we call anybody that comes to one of those we call them an honored guest and that's how we treat them and so they'll come to one of these events as a guest and and they're touched they're impacted uh maybe they've made a decision for christ or maybe they've just had a great time and and really enjoyed it and uh whatever happens works together and and they get back on their feet again and the next time we're back in that community they're there to volunteer and it's it's been so cool to see that full circle come on i almost feel like you know the next generation wants to serve before they believe you know like they love it yeah that's true and they you know in in fact being partnering with doing something good in the world actually gives opportunity for relationship and then sharing a belief but just to be clear for anyone listening right now there's no requirement to receive aid to believe like that's not that's not the goal there's no hook on these bottles of water like you have to believe in jesus to receive aid i want to i want to be so clear about this because this is how the church of jesus works when jesus heals when jesus delivers i mean even you see this in scripture he doesn't make any requirement he he asks people to follow him but he doesn't force that on anyone in fact i was thinking about this the other day like when the lepers came to jesus he heals all of them and asks them to come back and he acknowledges that one uh that one thanked him you know the one returns and and thanks jesus for healing him but he doesn't heal them on the condition that they believe and so convoy of hope is out doing good works so that people can hear the gospel and they're using food to do it but it's not the condition based on giving that help and when you guys go out there so what does that look like how does how does that work a little different depending on the situation it's it's different in a community event than it is at a disaster response site so in a disaster response site what we'll do is we set up usually we'll set up a drive through we call it point of distribution or pod so it's a drive-through pod and there'll be uh barricades throughout the parking lot so cars can serpentine their way through the parking lot and they'll come up and say in a normal one there'll be either four or maybe six tents set up that are you know these small 12 by 12 pop-ups and we'll have food and water and sometimes ice under there and they'll pull up in their car and they'll have received instructions before they get to that point but they'll either have a door open or the trunk will be popped and we have volunteers that just put the food in and zip it i mean it's in and out because you want to keep that line moving you want to serve as many people as you can so then what we do is we'll have people that work the line so they'll just be walking through the line and they'll talk to people in the cars hear their story listen to what happened to them offer them some encouragement offer them hope invite them to come to church with them um if if they're from the church where we're at then they'll say hey just come you know come back here if you want to come sunday you know here's my phone number i'll be glad to meet you in the lobby that kind of thing would love to see it um but again like you said there's no requirement but at the same time you want people to to have that freedom to be able to come and and so that invitation is extended so there's no there's no pressure with it but there's also no restriction well i don't want to go because nobody invited me or i don't want to go because i don't know anyone well now you do know someone and then we do something similar but yet different at our community events where they'll go through and go through all those different things like the kids game area the kids zone they'll go through the area where social services are set up they'll go through the food and but as they go through all these different things there's always site entertainment with music and that sort of thing but right at the very end is where we hand out the free groceries and as they come to that point somebody will greet them at that as they're funneled through that area and they say hey is there anything you we can pray with you about before you leave yeah and it's yes or no if they don't want prayer great thank you for coming here's pick your groceries up here as you leave and if you do want somebody to pray with you we've got a tent set up here called the connections tent and in that connections tent are all these circles of chairs and we set them up by parts of that community so a guest a guest host at the entrance to the tent will say you know where where are you they'll say oh i live you know such and such and say okay here somebody over in this circle right down here is from your area and they'll be glad to pray with you so you have trained volunteers sitting in that circle usually a couple of them and but the circles are big enough to take on a whole family and then the family will go in and sit down with these volunteers the volunteers will just let them tell their story you know hey what what what brings you here today how'd you find out about it what's going on in your life what can i pray with you about and then after they pray with them then they will you know depending on what the prayer need is and all that you kind of follow that rabbit trail as you go but then they always invite them to church hey would you come to church with me tomorrow because these are usually on saturday would you come with me tomorrow if you will i'll meet you at the lobby and i'll sit with you and and so it takes away that fear of i don't know anybody you know the church door the church is going to catch on fire if i walk through the doors you know that whole all the different arguments and it gives us a chance to to really extend that invitation and with no barriers so i love seeing convoy of hope in action partnering with churches disaster relief these response teams going into countries talk to me a little bit more about the feeding program with kids because that is something that you just you mentioned hundreds of thousands of kids every single day that has that's got to be expensive that's got to be expensive what how did that start and what countries are you in if you're allowed to say yeah what's the story behind that you know we've gotten to be so many i can't remember them all now we're uh when it was eight or ten or eleven i i did pretty good now i always forget them but i'll tell you a few of them uh central americas el salvador nicaragua honduras and guatemala haiti is another one we have a large uh feeding operation in the philippines um we're in several different uh places now i can't remember some of the other ones uh south africa was one where we were going to be doing doing one i can look them up here in a minute on a on a website that we've got but um the way it works is it's really cool we'll go into a community and you know you've got to do your due diligence on the front end and you've got to identify schools that you feel comfortable working with and people that are in that country that are capable of leading that program so and that's always through the local churches is where we find those you know we work with missionaries and local pastors the indigenous church and just you get those first couple schools that you can start with and then you start to grow it all began back in um africa in nairobi kenya and there was a slum area there years and years ago and and hal donaldson our founder went went there on a trip he used to be the editor of the pentecostal evangel way back in any old i actually remember that folks yeah yeah yeah and he went there to do an evangel story on this church that was in this slum area and so uh as he went there and did that he he saw you know all these kids in there and their you know they haven't eaten that you know they're they're they're skinny they're uh they're tired all the time they you know just malnourished all the things that go along with that and he said to the pastor he says what you know what can we do how can we help and he said well if we could get a feeding program in here he said but we don't have the money to be able to do that and i'll say well i'm going to raise the money and so he went back and wrote his article for the evangel and did a financial appeal as part of the article and people raised enough money to fund that feeding program for a few years and so that's where it began with you know a few hundred students in this school in nairobi kenya so from then on we just kind of expanded we said we'd meet a missionary that would say hey you know i'd like to do something like that here in this country or i want to do it over here and then just we would just gradually kept expanding and kept saying okay god the door's open we're going to step through it how are we going to fund it and yeah and people churches businesses individuals have all stepped up to the plate and said hey we believe in that vision we're going to do it we're going to be a part it almost reminds me of what jesus says in john um right before he talks about the holy spirit he says you're going to do greater works than me i've always wondered what that meant you know yeah i think i think it you know could mean healing and and deliverance but i also think some of those unique miracles and the miracle that i think of when i think about convoy of hope is just the multiplication of the bread and the fish yeah you guys have seen such a powerful massive amazing miraculous multiplication of food and resources and you have literally touched the globe um and i i just think it's an honor to be able to support you guys financially to support you prayerfully we just love um we love love you guys love what hal's doing and and the team that god has uh you know called together jeff you matt all the all the guys there in springfield all the truck drivers how many rigs do you guys have right now i'm curious yeah it's um it's growing and it's growing because of speed the light uh i almost every single one of our trucks has been provided by speed the light and we've got over 20 i'm trying to remember if it's 23 or 20 i know i saw over 20 long haul like over the wrong rigs and for anyone who travels the light is an organization that provides funds for missionaries to buy vehicles to expedite the gospel so if you're listening you're like what speed the light yeah it's cool to see the ministries working together to advance uh it really is and those those trucks aren't cheap just the tractor alone now is over a hundred thousand dollars and then the trailer and then you've got insurance and you know everything else on top of that you know the amazing thing though is we've got 20 20 some trucks now and we have i think right now we have four full-time drivers wow but we have somewhere around 75 volunteer drivers and convoy convoy has always been about mobilizing volunteers yeah so here's here's just yet another way you know we have farmers retired truck drivers uh people that you know i'll i'll do it from time to time i have a class a cdl and every now and then i'll volunteer to go take a truckload somewhere uh but but just people you know for truck drivers it's mainly in the springfield area because that's where the warehouse is and that's where the the food and the trucks and everything are but but to have that many people from from that size of a community that volunteer i mean and we have some guys yeah we have some guys that are literally full-time volunteer drivers they're running as much as the d.o.t will let them legally drive and yet we're not paying them anything they're i just you know that's the it's the it's the amazing thing about the church and christian organization is we've discovered a way to to leverage the expertise of god's people and to just multiply whatever it is that we have to offer and i just love to see people they give financially some people give in terms of their time they give their and we're able to see some pretty incredible things happen that's hard to believe 75 volunteer drivers and some of them are full-time volunteer drivers so if you're if you're living in springfield and you and you drive truck and want to do it for god convoy of hope if you haven't already heard about them um so this has been a just a cool opportunity to get to know you a little bit hear that about the mission of convoy of hope and super grateful for you guys jeff what is your hope and um what is what is hal's hope what what is it what's the hope of convoy of hope what do you guys what are you trying to achieve what's your dream i think our dream would be that that no one would ever go to bed hungry and that's a big dream and and it's impossible for one organization to do but it's not impossible for god it's it's a it's a it's an and it goes beyond that you know it goes beyond the hunger um we want we want people to not only not be hungry but we want them to be fulfilled in their lives we want them to to be hopeful that that their future is bright we want them to to grow up and and live kind compassionate lives and so that's really that those are the seeds that we're planting we're doing it with food and and and that that's why our goal is you know to see nobody ever go to bed hungry again but but really it's much more than that and and i would say a secondary goal along with that is to see the the local church continue to grow and develop and and be that light in their community not to be that hey here's our far four walls and our steeple and if you want to interact with us come visit us but to get outside the walls of the church and be involved in people's lives be relational more people come to christ it's interesting i've worked on a couple of billy graham crusades and sometimes they will they will do a raising of hands in some of the training sessions and things like that and they'll say how many of you came to christ that a billy graham crusade a few people around their hand how many came to christ at your church a few more raise their hand how many of you came to christ because somebody introduced you and invited you and yeah you know the room is full it's it the gospel is relational and if we can take kindness and compassion and use that to develop relationships and use that to help improve the lives of others then i i really believe god's gonna bless us as a result of that yeah i love that i love that i love that in fact that just reminds me of uh our name mesa means a table in spanish i think the next generation really needs to see relationships cultivated in the church as the as the source of transformation obviously first with god god's the only one that can change a heart but he uses people he uses people who are willing to step in and serve and love unconditionally like jesus and speak truth and and make sure you have a full belly and all the things that go along with that life and i love that you guys don't just think about hunger because what happens when you are full well now what's next like how can i turn around and be used by god and be fulfilled in god to serve and make a difference in the world and and leave an impact so i love the legacy that you guys are are leaving and i love that we're a part of it in a small way but i just love how the church is partnering together really across the globe yeah to see hungry people filled and it's neat to see churches respond to that so many churches like yours that want to be a part they want to be not only a part of what conway's doing but a part of what god's doing a part of what's happening in their community and i i told you earlier i had a chance to to visit your church years ago in the late 90s and loved it and just to to know the heritage that that mesa church has and all the things that have happened all the people that have served there through the years and uh it's exciting to see it's not over that it's in some ways it's just beginning it's a newbie it's not over it's a new season it's a new beginning i love honoring the past honoring the people that have been before us but man god has got a great future for what churches and christians and pastors and organizations if they're willing to tap in i i just love how you included hal's big dream and how just god just blew your mind superseded it now like what's next yeah well hey jeff it's been great talking with you and i just want to see if you would be willing to pray for um anyone who's listening and just pray god's blessing over them and and god's favor and and just whatever it is the holy spirit puts on your heart to pray for whoever is listening to you now yeah and i want to say a special thanks to you for taking time out of your day to to help us get a little bit better of a feel for convoy of hope and the mission that god's given convoy to partner with churches to make sure people are fed i'd love to thank you lord we just thank you for the the opportunity to get to know one another today and enjoy this time and god i pray for folks that are listening i pray god that uh you know what's going on in their lives you know what's impacting them good and bad and i just pray god that whatever needs they have that that you would just reach out touch them meet those needs lord in in a supernatural way that only you can and and god just do it in such a way that they know that they have received the touch from god i pray for for the pastor and the church here god and i pray lord that you would just continue to use them in mesa in in a mighty way that lord that church would just be a light in that community uh we talked about new beginnings and a new season and god that just so many things in store for people that follow you uh and if there's someone here watching the this broadcast today that that doesn't know you god we just pray that you'd put a little uh kindling in their heart lord that lets them know that there is something more than what they have right now and that more is a relationship with you and so we just ask god that you move and minister to them in a mighty way thank you for the opportunity you've given us to serve you thank you for all you've done for us for convoy of hope for mesa church god just pray that you would continue that work in jesus name amen amen jeff thank you so much and uh yeah if you've been listening and and you really have you want someone to know about convoy of hope or you've benefited from this interview you can share this you can send it via private message post it on your timeline uh go ahead and and link convoy of hope we would we would just love to get the word out about what a great organization convoy of hope is and spread spread the spread its reputation a little little bit through uh through social media and organically and man as many people that can know about convoy of hope um it's a great organization to financially support you don't have to be a christian to support it they're doing great work and it's some it's a worthy cause and so if you're looking for an organization to invest in and know that your money is is going towards a great cause i i can't i can't say enough good things about convoy of hope so hopefully you've been uh you've enjoyed this interview and again if you would be willing to share it we would love that so god bless you and have a great day thanks for tuning in you

Channel: Mesa Church

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Id: bRcISskk5_U

Length: 51min 9sec (3069 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 04 2021