Celebrating 5 Years of Serving

Filling The Void has been lifting up lives for five years.
This is our friend, John, in the green. He often asks us
to pray with him.

THE MOMENT THAT BIRTHED A MINISTRY

There are people you meet who make quite an impression. For us, we can’t help but recall a man named Roy.

We met him on Oct. 13, 2003, around 1 p.m. in downtown Tulsa. It was Columbus Day. Roy was searching for something himself that day – a friend and some food.

Roy’s situation was striking. He said he had been eating out of dumpsters. He was – in every sense – the stereotype of what society sees as “homeless.”.

You could call it our maiden voyage into ministry. We didn’t seek it out, though. The situation was thrust upon us. At the time, there was no such thing as Filling The Void.

Roy approached us, not vice versa. After initially turning him away, God gave us the courage to track him down.

We took his hand. We hugged him. We led him in a prayer. We took care of his lunch. And we haven’t seen him since.

The experience made us examine ourselves. Deep down inside, we discovered a calling to reach out to other “Roys” to help reflect our Heavenly Father’s heart for the poor and needy.

A few months later, we started a ministry. We’ve since served more than 21,000 sack lunches.

Burgers, Bands & A Block Party

The guys at the grills cooked 500 hamburgers

and 500 hot dogs for Filling The Void's first-ever

block party in downtown Tulsa.

ROAD CLOSED!

Mollie and Karl Myers and Aaron Horton from Tulsa’s Central Church approached us with a bold idea back in the spring.

They said they were going to close their doors on Sunday morning, Sept. 28. Instead of “doing” church that day, they wanted to “be” the church and do community service projects all over town.

So we talked about doing a block party downtown for the needy. We figured we could get a couple hundred to attend.

Central Church took care of everything, and we mean everything – from working with the city and the police to renting road closure signs and portable potties.

They brought 40-50 volunteers, several bands, multiple musicians and a couple of great big gas grills that cooked 500 hamburgers and 500 hot dogs.

Their labor of love was met with equal enthusiasm from the crowd we take care of from week-to-week – several of whom jumped at the chance to stand-in with the band for a few songs.

Together, we served more than 800 sack lunches to an estimated 300 people. Many of them were waiting at 3rd & Detroit well in advance of our arrival to setup at 9 a.m.

Our favorite story is about a man named Aubrey. He pulled us aside after one of the sermons and asked us to pray with him. He said he needed to get right with God and could use a Bible. We were happy to oblige. It's what we're all about.

PUTTING IT IN PERSPECTIVE

In Luke 14:13-14, the Bible says, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.”

Details From Denver

We've served Alfonso several times in Denver.

SUCCESS IN OUR SECOND CITY
We’re happy to report that our upstart outreach efforts in Denver are doing just fine, thanks to the hands and feet of more than 30 volunteers who have stepped forward to serve.

Beth Garland, Gary Nilson, David Warren, Patrick Rutty and Andy Forcina have led 11 outreach days for us in Denver since April.

That translates into more than 150 lives already touched, including several elderly people we’ve crossed paths with who really needed someone to pray for them.

“I’ve been surprised by how open these random people on the street are to our approach – a little food, a little conversation, an offer to pray for them,” Patrick Rutty said.

We’ve also bumped into a man named Alfonso several times, who is usually outside the ESPN Zone on Denver’s 16th Street Mall. He peers through the store windows at the TV screens.

He always smiles and welcomes the box lunches we serve from Corner Bakery – who donated approximately $200 in lunches to us one day this summer.

We also received a $250 grant from Forest Oil Corp. in Denver. One of our volunteers, Bev Beeson, did the paperwork and promoted our work inside her company.

Our next outreach day in Denver is slated for Wednesday, Dec. 10. We would say “weather-permitting” given the wild winters there, but our Colorado crew won’t stand for it.

Says Patrick Rutty, “Why would we stop when the weather gets nasty?”

Our 20,000th Sack Lunch

When you support Filling The Void, you’re helping us serve

up hope. This gentleman received our 20,000th sack lunch.

A GIFT FOR GARY

While we’ve never done a lot of PR to promote Filling The Void, we do like to make a big deal out of the days when we’re going to surpass a significant milestone.

For example, we handed out our 10,000th sack lunch on July 11, 2007. From that point, it only took us only 14 months to get ready to celebrate sack lunch No. 20,000.

That day turned out to be Sept. 12. We stuffed the special bag with extra cookies and fruit bars and one of Arby’s larger market-fresh turkey sandwiches instead of the usual roast beef.

Our crowds have been smaller lately after we made a couple of major changes to our ministry schedule in Tulsa (serving on Fridays instead of Wednesdays and moving from a public park to a private parking lot), so we weren’t sure who or how many would show up that day.

One of the first people to emerge through the serving line of about 40 folks was a soft-spoken man named Gary.

He got the 20,000th bag, all right, and a whole lot of love and handshakes. We also loaded him down with a new Bible, a devotional book, and a men’s journal in an effort to lift up his life.