Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
[00:00:00] <music>
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
[00:00:17] <music>
Laura Dugger: The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today over 55 years later at Sam Leman Chevrolet Buick in Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi Family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over Central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at Lemangm.com.
David Kieser is my guest today, and he is the founder and president of Midwest Food Bank, which is a faith-based organization. Their mission is to share the love of Christ by alleviating hunger and malnutrition locally and throughout the world, and providing disaster relief, all without discrimination.
David's going to share story after story today of God's leading faithfulness and miracles, and I pray that it stretches our faith through listening and inspires all of us to action. [00:01:21]
Here's our chat.
Welcome to the Savvy Sauce, David.
David Kieser: Thank you for having me, Laura. Appreciate being here.
Laura Dugger: So glad to have you join us. Will you just start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
David Kieser: Yeah. Married to my wife, Wilma, for 43 years. We have six children together and 24 grandchildren. Basically, my career growing up was farming, so I have a background in farming, but God changed that in 2005 when I got more involved with the Food Bank. That's basically where we've been.
Laura Dugger: Well, there's so many incredible parts to that story. 24 grandkids, that's pretty impressive.
David Kieser: It is.
Laura Dugger: But for a long time, you've had a heart to feed the hungry. So, where did that heart to feed the hungry come from?
David Kieser: I have to give my parents credit, I guess, for the start of that. My mom and dad were generous people. I can remember a time back when I was about seven years old, we moved from Mackinac, Illinois to Bloomington, Illinois in 1961. And I can remember a year or two after we moved over there, my mother was bringing too many groceries home. She would put the groceries away that she had bought for our family, and then she would load some extra groceries in this little red wagon and she'd ask me to take it down the road and up this dirt lane and share them with the neighbor there. [00:02:44]
What it was, mom wasn't buying too many groceries, but we had a neighbor that had eight children. It was nine of us and eight of them. And mom and dad seeing that they had a need, and so they just simply filled that need. Maybe more by their actions and by their telling us was probably what I learned early on in life.
Then as time went on, the Food Bank original start in 2003, which is 16 years ago, we've seen a little article in a Pantograph, which is our local paper, and they were asking for help. There was 10 non-profit agencies asking for help to keep their pantry shelves with food so they could feed families that were in need.
So we responded to that article, never intended for it to go any more than that, and here we are 16 years later with a God that's bigger than the whole universe doing things through people that are pretty small. But He has blessed that effort very much.
Laura Dugger: I can't wait to unpack it more and hear all of these incredible stories. But just to catch listeners up, you and my dad go way back. Listeners may remember my dad from Episode 27, which aired about a year ago. [00:03:51] But my dad is on the board of directors for Midwest Food Bank. I heard from him, you started on your farm and that your first expansion came about because of Hurricane Katrina. So can you tell us more about that?
David Kieser: Yes. That was an interesting endeavor, I guess I'll say. We were doing well at the farm, serving our local agencies. 2005 is when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. And by now we had probably 60 or 70 agencies coming to the farm to pick up locally.
The reason we responded to the Katrina need was on TV we've seen 1-800 Red Cross, 1-800 cell arm, please help. And it was enough times on the TV that you could tell this was something unusual. At that point, I didn't know and most of us didn't know that that was the biggest natural disaster the United States had ever had. Over 1,800 people were killed and thousands and thousands were displaced. [00:04:51]
So we decided as a board that we could take a semi-load of food down. And so we loaded up a semi-load. We had a reefer trailer, refrigerated trailer. My wife and I headed down to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. But prior to getting to Hattiesburg, I pulled off at a gas station just to try to get a landline call made because the cell towers were down.
When I pulled into this gas station, I told my wife, something didn't seem right. I said, it just seems like there's cars sitting all over the gas station, but there's nobody at the pump. So, when I got out of the truck to go into the gas station, people started getting out of their cars and walking towards our semi.
What I didn't realize was these were people that had actually evacuated and they had driven this far. We were probably at least four hours away from the coast yet. But they were sitting in a parking lot with their cars out of gas and the gas station out of gas so they could go nowhere. The only transportation they had was their legs. [00:05:50]
Two ladies walked over to me at first and they sighed when they put their arms around me. And I could tell it was a sigh of distress. And they said, "Are you here to help us?" And I said, "I'm here to help whatever I can. This was not my final destination, but what do you need?" And they just explained to me that they had gotten stranded there without gas.
So I opened the back of the semi. It was a reefer trailer. And many of the people in the cars, in fact, all of the people in the vehicle started coming over behind the truck. And they were just trying to cool themselves with the air that was coming out of the back of the truck and then getting water and some food that we had.
I just realized at that moment that there was something bigger ahead of us because what happened at that moment was what reminded me of my dad driving a tractor with a hay rack on a snowy day in a pasture and I'd be kicking off hay to the cows. They'd come to the hay because that was the only source of food they had or drink. It made me realize that these people were in desperate need.
So, after giving them everything they needed at the time, we closed up our doors, we made our call, and headed into Hattiesburg, only to be more persuaded by God's Spirit that there was more work to do. [00:07:00] There was more people hurting much worse than the ones we'd already seen.
And so, we unloaded that first load. It was late at night. Planned on going back and starting to farm. I had no idea what was ahead of us. But when I was there unloading that load at the Salvation Army in Hattiesburg, I'd seen people getting out of 15-passenger vans crying, holding a pillow or some item that they brought with them. That's all they had. That's all they had saved or got to keep from the storm.
When we got done with the load, the Salvation Army brothers that were standing around this generator, it was a generator with a light there about 12 chairs and the majors and the captains were talking about the next day and this was pitch dark at night. So I stayed there with them for a little bit with my wife and then I told them I needed to get to the truck so I could go home and start farming. They said, "Well, let's pray together." So we prayed together.
And as I left that circle, one of the men followed me and he said, "David, we want you to bring back 10 more similar loads of food." And I said, "I will," without even hesitating, with the knowledge that we didn't even have 10 loads of food in our warehouse. [00:08:07]
That was an experience that I think was the beginning of an exit for myself as far as our farming operation, our family operation, and the future of Midwest Food Bank. I look back now and I see how God started to take me away from the farming and really to start to build on that.
But I want to just share a couple more stories or at least one more story on the third semi-load that we took to Biloxi. So we went home with that first one, reloaded, went back. Third one, they asked us to go into Biloxi. So that was right where all the damage had been done.
And I was about two or three miles maybe from getting there and I didn't know exactly because I'd road signs were down and you have much to go by. But there was a state trooper there. And I stopped to ask him, I said, "How much further do we have to go?" And he said, "Your nose will tell you." Again, impacting memory that I've got.
And he was right. When we got to Biloxi, it was a very sad state of affairs. If you would have videoed what we were seeing, you couldn't have got the smell. The stench was horrible. [00:09:10] I pulled up to the first brick building that had actually survived the storm, and there was some reefer trailers backed up to this building, refrigerated trailers.
I assumed that that's where the Salvation Army wanted me to go, and so I walked over to some state troopers that were standing there, asked them if that was the right place, and they were very sober. And they replied to me, "No sir, these trailers have bodies and I'm waiting for identification." So bodies had been picked up, marked where they were picked up at, and they were put in the refrigeration. So again, a very stark, impacting comment and reality.
They told me where the place was to unload the food. So we drove a few blocks to the south and a few blocks to the east, and there was a parking lot that had been cleared off. There was no warehouse. There was a man standing, a pastor on top of four pallets, so he was above the crowd that was waiting for help, told us where to pull into.
I observed the line of people waiting for help that morning. It was a Sunday morning, and the line of people waiting was seven city blocks long, four people wide. And it was in the morning, but it was still very, very humid and very hot. [00:10:15] And these people were just waiting for help.
So again, it's just... Anybody that would have been in our situation would have responded similar. And that is to try to help these folks that were hurting so bad.
Laura Dugger: Wow. Those stories are incredible. And even so backing it up, you said yes to 10 more loads of food knowing you didn't have that much food to bring. It sounds like God did provide. Is that right?
David Kieser: That's correct. You just make me think of another story. And that was on Labor Day weekend. So we were coming home, I'm thinking it was maybe the fourth or fifth load that we were coming back from, and my wife had three cell phones because the towers were so scarce that we tried to get different phones so we could get different communications at different parts of the trip down and back.
And I remember it was 11 o'clock at night and one of the phones rang and she answered it. On this trip back I was wondering where the next loads were going to come from. [00:11:13] But on that particular night, God chose to have somebody call me from Morton, Illinois. He was sharing with me that after church that Sunday, they had actually asked this congregation that was interested in helping Midwest Food Bank help those in Katrina they should stay after church and they would have a meeting.
So they met in a Sunday school room. He said there was over 100 people that stayed. They made out a plan that on Monday, Labor Day, they would try to gather up as much food as they could and take it to a warehouse here in Morton. They would shrink-wrap it, pelletize it, shrink-wrap it, and have it ready for the Food Bank over in Bloomington.
This was Sunday night, not Monday night, that he called me and he said they had already had over two semi-loads of food gathered up and they were taking it to the warehouse. And it just struck me when I hung up. I was so taken back. I was so humbled by that, that God would say to me, "David, your job is to drive the truck. I'll take care of the other things that you can't take care of." [00:12:14]
It had to be things like that to keep us involved and keep us tracking in the right direction. Because I couldn't at this point walk away from this situation and think about farming back in Illinois when so many things were happening and God was just opening doors and sharing His presence with us because He knew we needed it. He knew that we were too weak to know what the future held So it's stories like that that I just have to say that gave us the courage to keep moving forward.
Laura Dugger: Speaking of the farm, how did you make that decision to move from the farm into town?
David Kieser: Well, that's interesting. When we started in the first two-car garage, that was not a big decision. That was a decision, but our family could make that fairly easily. Then when we outgrew the first location or the first building, we moved into a second warehouse on our farm. And that wasn't too bad. We took our machinery out of the warehouse, parked it in God's warehouse outside, poured a concrete floor, put heat in the floor, and we put air conditioning in the building, so it was a temperature-controlled warehouse. [00:13:16]
And we thought that would work forever, but it didn't. In 2005, I think we were up to maybe 75 agencies, and now we're doing work disaster relief that we could tell by now that that was going to be significant. It was not going to just be a couple weeks.
So we've been praying about looking and about moving. Found a building in Bloomington, but it was $1.2 million. We had never raised funds like that before. We had never been exposed to that type of situation. So I felt like it was very needful to try to help the people that we were serving better.
So the people that were coming to our farm to pick up food to agencies, they were waiting four hours in line to get service. And I just felt like if we were a for-profit company, we would not make our customers wait that long. So we should try to address that. But still it was a struggle because of the funds that it took to move.
I remember one loadout day I went to every vehicle that came to pick up food and asked them if they'd pray for us that we could make the right decision. [00:14:21] I just knew that they were part of us and that God could work through them as well as us and together maybe we could find an answer of going for sure or not.
And I'll never forget when I came upon this old rusty conversion van from Decatur, Illinois, and a single lady sitting inside in the driver's seat, and I started to ask her if she would pray for us so we'd know if we should go or if we shouldn't. And without hesitation, just like the snap of a finger she said to me, "David, he owns the cattle in a thousand hills. Go, trust Him."
That was so impacting to me. I'll never forget it. She could have took the door of her van and opened it and hit me in the stomach and it wouldn't have been as much of an impact as what she told me. There was a lady that had nothing, nothing, and she was coming to Midwest Food Bank with a vehicle that was barely roadworthy to pick up food for people that had nothing. And I just felt like God had such a tremendous, powerful way to say, "David, and the rest of you, go forward. I've just told you through this lady." And it did. It made the decision for us. [00:15:21]
That night, the board had a discussion. I recommended that we follow going forward, and God blessed that. It didn't take very long at all, and we had over $600,000 pledged to the warehouse if we would buy it. Again I'll never forget that verse Psalm 50:10, like I said, He owns a cattle... He owns everything. And if it's all His, then all we're doing is just trying to use it for His glory.
Laura Dugger: That is so incredible. And it just sounds like God was already working and moving in these ways and you were just able to join in to what He was already doing. And He provided the right people at the right time. So I'm just going to let you continue with these amazing stories that really only God could have orchestrated. Are there any others that come to mind?
David Kieser: Well, there's definitely others. I'll share a couple more. One significant one was later on, now this is around Thanksgiving time when we're still hauling back and forth. I should just mention maybe before we're too far along here, that the 10 loads that they requested were taken down and delivered. [00:16:29] But we didn't feel like that was the end of our commitment or our journey.
So as we continued to serve, it took about a year and a half, and they were still asking for food. But during that year and a half, we ended up taking down 160 plus semi-loads of food and supplies. So God is so much bigger, so much bigger. And out of a terrible disaster, He still showed Himself so amazingly through the things that He did to help us do that.
One of the drivers from one of the loads that went down was Todd Feller. He lived in Valparaiso, Indiana. Again, such an inspiration to me to see how people would just pitch in and help. He drove three and a half hours from Valparaiso or four to come over to Bloomington to get in the truck to take it down and bring it back and then go back home again. So a committed driver. He was in his late 60s, maybe early 70s.
I can remember it was on a Saturday, He had taken the load down to Biloxi and unloaded it to the warehouse, and he was asked if he could bring a load back. [00:17:29] Why would you bring a load back if you were hauling food down? The reason why was because some of these companies now were donating semi-loads of canned fruit, semi-loads of beans, or semi-loads of canned vegetables. They weren't ready in boxes of a variety of things. They were just full semi-loads of one product.
We needed those in Bloomington to build our boxes. So what the Salvation Army asked was, would you please take these back with you, backhaul them to Bloomington, use them in your supplies, and bring them back when they're in the right arrangements in the boxes for the families? And that would be something we definitely wanted to do. Had plenty of volunteers wanting to do it.
So Todd said yes. They loaded him up with the load. And Todd was a very experienced driver. He weighed himself at a CAT scale. It's a place where you can weigh your truck for a couple dollars, you can pay to get your scale weight. And he noticed that he was overweight. He was over 80,000 pounds. In fact, he was about 84,000 pounds. [00:18:25]
Well, at that time, this disaster was so bad that the federal government had lifted the 80,000-pound weight limit for disaster loads to 100,000. So they waived the 80,000 and you could legally take 100,000 if you were doing disaster relief. That was helpful because you didn't have to worry about being a little bit overweight and getting a ticket.
So when he was overweight, but he was coming back, he was concerned. So he called me to ask me if he should bring it back or not. And I told him, yes, because it's disaster relief, they'll recognize that the same as if we would be going the other way. That evening, I got a phone call, and he was sitting in Tennessee at a weigh station, and they would not let him go through. And I was surprised at that.
I asked him while he was talking on his phone if he could let me talk to the scale master, and the scale master said, "I can't talk on that phone. I'm not allowed to do that." So I ended up having to call him back at the weigh station to talk to the scale master. [00:19:26]
And I tried to explain to him that we were hauling disaster relief both ways. And he said, "Well, that's fine, sir. I appreciate you doing that." But he said, "We just found out that they've lifted the waiver and we're back to 80,000 pounds." Well, at that point I knew we were wrong because if they had lifted the waiver and I didn't know it or we didn't know it, then it was our fault.
So now my next challenge was how are we going to get 4,000 pounds off a Todd Feller semi-sitting at a weigh station Saturday night. It seemed like a horrible situation. But a lot of times when those situations present themselves, you go to prayer and ask God to give you an answer or help us through it.
And it was interesting because I thought maybe I'd find a record service to come out there and just take the extra food. I could pay him to take it. But the Waymaster would not give me the name of a record service. He said, "We cannot do that because that's preferential treatment."
I was finally able to convince him to at least give me a number. [00:20:27] I called the first guy and he said, "I'm busy right now, I can't do it. Here's my buddy's phone number." So I called him, he said, "I'm kind of busy too." So he said, "Why don't you call the 8th Street Mission?" And I said, "Hey, I'd love to.” Got a number, and he said, Yeah.
So, he gave me a phone number to the 8th Street Mission. I called them. Again, this was Saturday evening. I told them the dilemma that we were in, and the guy seemed pretty surprised and pretty excited. He said, "Just wait a few minutes." He said," Our pastor will call you right back." He said, "We're just finishing up our service here tonight."
So, waited a few minutes, the pastor called me back. He said, "David, the night in our mission here, our whole evening was around encouraging each other to try to double our can drive before Thanksgiving." And he said, "We've got 3,000 pounds of canned food, and we were hoping to get up to 6,000. Well, we had 4,000, plus there are 3,000, we'll give him 7,000."
And he said he knew where the scale was, he would get some pickup trucks and he'd go out there with his men. [00:21:29] It turned out to be a very, very blessed night. And who knew that morning when we were loading and overloading the truck, coming to Tennessee and finding out we're overloaded, thinking that we had a dilemma, all of that was answered prayer. God had somebody in Tennessee that needed food and we were able to let the people at the mission see how God works through prayer, His faithfulness when we trust Him.
So it was just another one of those situations that you can't hardly I don't want to say believe that it happens, because you have to believe everything that God does. He can do anything. But it was amazing to see how God unraveled that whole situation. Todd Feller ended up getting pizza for all the guys that came out there. They had a little party after they got done. It turned out to be just a blessed story and a blessed situation.
Laura Dugger: That's just another miracle of God working. I just love hearing how he personally met all of these needs and these prayer requests. [00:22:30]
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Laura Dugger: Are there any other stories that you can think of?
David Kieser: Well, I guess I would say that there's been times when we were expanding the Food Bank so that we would find out that somebody wanted to have a food bank. Maybe I'll use Indianapolis as a reference. There was some businessmen that came over to Bloomington and they'd seen what we were doing and wanted to know if we could maybe have one in Indianapolis.
Again, looking back, the decisions look like they should have been easy to make. But when you're at the moment in time, when you make a decision and you're looking forward, I'm the kind of guy that really needs to have God tell me directly, yes, do it or not do it. [00:24:34] Kind of like the lady in the van, that kind of experience.
So, we had had a couple meetings with the Indianapolis team and even had someone from Indianapolis that was willing to donate a building, which was a huge part of expansion. Still, we weren't quite sure if we should move ahead and grow that much or if we shouldn't.
I remember the last meeting we had with this group was on a Wednesday and the following Saturday I was working at the food bank in Bloomington when the front door opened up and somebody walked in. It was Jim Gapinski, one of the men from Indianapolis with his wife. And I was like, "Why would you drive two and a half hours without calling? I'm not even usually here on a Saturday." And he said, "Well, I just wanted my wife Rose to see what I've been seeing and feel what I've been feeling about the food bank. So we just drove over mostly to look through the windows and just let her see the place from the outside."
I said, "Well, that's great." I said, "Well, if you're here, I'll be glad to give you a tour." So I gave him and his wife a tour. [00:25:35] Got back out to the front door about 40 minutes later. We knew we were still struggling with whether or not we're going to Indy. But they started leaving, they went through the double doors, and I started going back to my office and I noticed he turned and came back in. And he said, "David, we didn't pray." I said, "You know what, you're right, Jim. We always pray when we're together, making decisions like this."
So the three of us held hands. I asked Jim to pray. And during his prayer, he said, "God, you know this is something that we want to do, but we want to make sure that it's with your blessing." He said, "Help us to trust you. You own the cattle on a thousand hills." I immediately broke down. Broke down meaning I started bawling. I just was so touched that God would be so faithful that at that moment in time on a Saturday night when I wasn't supposed to be there, they came in and they left. They already went through the double doors, went and prayed. They came back in and God was still able to reveal Himself and say, "Move ahead. I'm blessing your efforts." [00:26:36] Because he quoted the same scripture, Psalm 50:10, and he had no idea that's what we moved to Bloomington on.
When I got done praying, he asked me what was wrong, and I said, "You can go back and tell your people we're coming to Indianapolis because this is a sign that I have to take seriously, we all have to take seriously, that God wants us to trust Him." So here we are, quite a few warehouses later, and Indianapolis is doing great. So thankfully that God is so faithful to us during those times.
Laura Dugger: Wow, praise God for that and that his scripture is living, it's alive, and that He used it two different times, that same passage to speak two different next steps to you. I'm vaguely remembering some more scripture that was really impactful that had to do with a story in Africa.
David Kieser: As we expanded, Africa became a target point. It pulled on us, it tugged on us enough that Denny Mott, Ralph Endress, and a few others of us went over there and we started an operation over there. [00:27:43] Sometime later, after we got started over there and we were operating over there, we had a flight that Denny Mott and Ralph was on that went from Chicago to London and London to Nairobi. And each of those legs are about nine hours. So if you're visiting with somebody, you have a chance to share some things back and forth.
Well, it turns out that Denny Mott was sitting next to Mildred, a lady that came from Africa, got her schooling here in the States, had a burden on her heart to go back and help her people. And Mildred was sharing with Denny that she was starting a crocodile farm in Malindi, which is not too far out in Nairobi. She was only going to use the skins of these crocodiles, in fact just the soft belly skin.
And so as they talked back and forth, she was using these soft belly skins of the crocodiles to make luxury handbags for ladies. When I say luxury, I mean this was real luxury. It was $25,000 to $75,000 per bag. But she did not have a need for the meat. [00:28:47]
Well one of the things we need the most, or very badly in those kind of places, Africa, Haiti, is protein. And crocodile meat would be a great protein. So when she was listening to Denny what we do, and she said, "I will donate the crocodile carcasses to Midwest Food Bank.
They ended up visiting enough that we had another meeting after that. It got to the point where we both felt comfortable moving ahead with this. So we ended up building a crocodile processing facility in Malindi on the crocodile farm. And what's so incredible is there's hundreds of thousands of children that are living in the slums in Nairobi and around in that area. And there's millions of crocodiles in the Nile and the tributaries of the Nile River. And to see that God would bring those two things together for the sake of those suffering kids, that they can have something that would help them learn because a child needs a protein from conception to about eight years is when the brain is developing. And if they don't get enough protein, their body starves the brain and they become mentally stunted and then physically stunted. [00:29:57] So this has just been an amazing, amazing possibility.
When I grew up, my mom and dad… we lived in a farm. We butchered cows and pigs and chickens and ducks, but never did I think we'd butcher crocodiles. It was interesting to see that that would come into play.
Laura Dugger: And it sounds like that's been such a blessing.
David Kieser: Yeah, it makes me think of the time when I was in Africa, too, that with all these different things happening, we meet a lot of people over there, faithful people, Christian people. I can remember the one time a lady told me she was so thankful that we were coming from another country to help her people, so grateful that we were there.
And she made a comment to me. She said, David, never underestimate the power of the Holy One of Israel. And she paused and looking straight in my eyes she said, "And don't ever touch the glory." And I just thought, "Wow, if we can really truly do that, always give Him the glory for everything He does, then we can live expectantly that great things will continue to happen. [00:31:00] That's what He asked of us to do.
And I have to say, I was recently also reminded of the word faith, F-A-I-T-H. Fantastic Adventure In Trusting Him. And that's really what it turns out to be. It's a fantastic adventure if we can just trust Him when He provides whatever the need is that we try to meet, then give Him the glory and expect something else great to happen.
Those are some times that I have to tell you that over and over, It's these kind of things. I'm telling them as a story now, but they happened in real-time when they were happening. And you need those kind of Ebeneezers to go back and say, God was here, God was here, He was here, and it helps us to build off of that.
Laura Dugger: Absolutely. I think it's encouraging for everyone's faith to have these stories shared.
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And I know that volunteers are a huge part of your operation. So how did you get so many volunteers?
David Kieser: Well, Laura, that's an interesting question and an interesting part of Midwest Food Bank. I remember when we were in our first building in Bloomington. So we moved off the farm and got to Bloomington. And we didn't know how much money we would get, how many volunteers, how much food. It was all a step of faith.
I can remember people asking me, "How can you get so many people coming in here to help, to volunteer?" And I said, I can't get people to come in here to help volunteer. If the Spirit touches their heart to make them want to volunteer, I can't keep them out. [00:33:16]
I really have to say that that's what I've experienced at the Food Bank is. It's an amazing group of people. We have over 100 semi-drivers in Bloomington alone that we're willing to help. And our ratio of volunteers to staff... so for every staff member we have nationwide, we have 700 volunteers. So it's a 1 to 700 ratio.
And I just have to say that recently we were going through the numbers. If the volunteers would not be there, if tomorrow they did not all show-up, we would have to hire approximately 100 plus, maybe 120, full-time staff to take that place of those volunteers.
When you talk about volunteers, I drove in here in Morton at the Food Bank where we're at tonight, and on my way in, out in the yard, in front, the grass area, there's a dedicated gentleman picking up the grass clippings. Now, I'm sure he's got a yard at home too and he's probably taking care of it, but he sees the time and the necessity to keep this grass area in front of the building neat and clean. [00:34:20]
So over and over we are so blessed, so blessed with so many different volunteers. We have volunteers paying the bills in some situations, we have the semi-drivers, we have electricians. It's just God's family is an amazing family. And I have to say, whoever hears this right now, if you're a volunteer, God bless you. God bless you. And if you're not, whether you volunteer at Midwest Food Bank or someplace else, I just would encourage you to consider that.
There's a scripture that I just love it. It's Proverbs 19:17. I didn't even know it existed until about two years ago I ran across it. And it says, He who helps those in need lendeth to the Lord and the Lord will repay. You know, none of us really want to be repaid for volunteerism, for helping somebody else, but what that verse tells me is that Jesus could fix all of what's wrong with the needs of the people by Himself with the snap of a finger, but He chose us to do it. He left that opportunity for us. [00:35:22]
And that He would encourage us by saying, if you help those that are hurting, they're equal to you. God sees them as equals. They're not second-class citizens. If you're willing to help them, then I'm going to bless you back. I just think that's a powerful and encouraging verse. I guess I would just encourage everyone to read that and think about the time you invest for somebody else, how Jesus looks at that.
Laura Dugger: I hope we all can cultivate more of an attitude of generosity. And if listeners do want to get more involved specifically with Midwest Food Bank, what are some needs that they can meet and where can they find out more online?
David Kieser: They can get midwestfoodbank.org at their website. I think that maybe we can share some phone numbers after we're done here. You can put them on the… podcast. But we can use all different types of skill sets. Just like I mentioned about the gentleman that was out in the yard here. [00:36:22]
Everything that it takes to run this business is touched by volunteers in some way, shape, or form. So again, I would just say that if anybody's interested, try to contact the local division that you're close to, and that would be on our website. All the different locations are on the website.
I can tell you of a situation in Bloomington where we have two state farm attorneys, it's a husband and wife, and they have been volunteering since we started on our farm. Once they found out what we were doing, they've stayed in touch and they have become volunteer team leaders. The wife now has taken a position on our board in Bloomington.
I am just so humbled by that, that God would bring people that are so skilled and so qualified and that He has already changed their heart to be a servant of His and He allows them to come to the food bank and take on such great responsibility. [00:37:19]
I guess I just have to say that I would just beg all the listeners to pray that Midwest Food Bank can stay true to its calling and mission so that many more who are food insecure and without hope can be served in the name of Jesus. I just feel like it's so important that we do that.
And it's important that our board and our leadership continues to keep humility as our... humility equals success. If we can stay humble, God will bless it.
Laura Dugger: Absolutely. We will definitely link to that website in the show notes. I appreciate you saying ways that people can serve. It's just such a picture of the body of Christ that we all can bring something unique to the table.
Our listeners know we're called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge or discernment. And we would love to hear your practical life tips. So as my final question for you today, David, what is your savvy sauce? [00:38:22]
David Kieser: I have to repeat the verse or the comment that the lady made to me in Africa. And that is: never underestimate the power of the Holy One of Israel and never touch the glory. I think that sums it up so well. Then secondly, humility equals success. And I'll finish by saying, and the volunteers that are so faithful by listening to what God is telling them and coming to the food bank and helping, there's prayers going up constantly to God for help. It may be a grandma, it may be an aunt, it's somebody caring for somebody. And when those prayers go up, God sends His Spirit down and touches our heart, and He wants us to respond to that need. So I think together we can joyfully look forward to the opportunity to continue to keep serving until Jesus comes back.
Laura Dugger: David, I just want to sincerely thank you for pausing today and reflecting back on God's goodness. You are a humble leader, and I think God received a lot of glory from your willingness to share all of these stories of Midwest Food Bank. [00:39:27] So thank you for joining us today.
David Kieser: You're welcome. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.
This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. [00:40:30] This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him. [00:41:30]
At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.
Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today. [00:42:36]
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
