First Baptist Church here gave an enthusiastic “Hoo-rah” when asked in early November to provide Thanksgiving dinner for the Wounded Soldiers group at Fort Polk.
LEESVILLE – First Baptist Church here gave an enthusiastic “Hoo-rah” when asked in early November to provide Thanksgiving dinner for the Wounded Soldiers group at Fort Polk.
“Our folks love the GIs and love the post and were willing to sacrifice for them,” said Jerry Penfield, pastor. The church would be glad to provide the requested 100 meals, he told the woman from Wounded Soldiers, which organized during the last year.
“A couple of days later she called back and said the number had grown to about 200, and I told her we could handle that, but just barely,” the pastor said. “She called again two days before the dinner and said there’d be 500 people, and this dinner was set for the day after our big church Thanksgiving dinner.”
Suddenly the church’s willingness to help became a God-sized challenge, and God came through, the pastor said.
Women of the church arrived early in the morning of Nov. 20 to make dressing and the other ‘fixin’s’ of a holiday feast – corn, sweet potato casserole, and ham, plus many members brought all kinds of desserts for the Wounded Soldiers.
In addition, prisoners at the local jail smoked the turkeys.
“We had more than enough,” Penfield said. “We had plenty to leave with the soldiers for them to take to their homes.”
About 25 people in three vans drove the seven miles to the former Warriors Club on Fort Polk with the food, and then served it buffet-style to about 400 people – soldiers and their families.
“It was an honor for us to be able to minister to the soldiers who had made sacrifices for our freedom,” said Doug Hughes, youth and children’s minister at First Leesville. “We could never match the sacrifices they made for us, but I pray that in some way, they were blessed. Perhaps they were able to see the sacrifice Christ made for them through us.”
The church has no definite plans to provide a Thanksgiving meal next year for the Wounded Soldiers, but a First Leesville member works with the group, the pastor said.