About 40 volunteers from four churches in Fayette Baptist Association joined together this week to provide a Thanksgiving meal to 1,000 construction workers at the Ford Motor Company’s BlueOval City job site in Stanton, Tennessee.
The Walbridge Company hosted the event celebrating 6.7 million man hours of work. An executive from the Ford Motor Company was there to congratulate the vast army of workers on keeping the project on time and set to open in 2025.
Gregg Hauss, new director of missions for Fayette Association, said the opportunity to minister to BlueOval City workers on Nov. 21 came through Warren Community Church in Somerville, led by new pastor Matthew Watkins.
RELATED: Check out other stories on BlueOval ministry here.
Watkins’ cousin owns Humdingers and Moe’s restaurants in Memphis and provided the food for the BlueOval City event, Hauss said.
Watkins said his cousin asked if Warren Community could provide volunteers to serve the food. Watkins then contacted Hauss to see if they could involve other Fayette Association churches.
Building unity
While the overwhelming majority of volunteers were from Warren Community Church, Watkins was appreciative of the other churches that helped. He is hopeful they will have additional opportunities in the months ahead. “We want to build unity in our association and these are the kind of events that will do that,” he said.
“It was just a great day,” Hauss said. “We wanted to feed the workers and show the love of Christ in a tangible way.”
The volunteers gave away New Testaments in English and Spanish, provided by the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, along with tracts and a devotional written by Will Graham, Hauss said.
“Significant relationships were established as a result of the association’s efforts,” said Danny Sinquefield, Harvest Field 1 leader and coordinator of TBMB’s BlueOval City partnership.
Sinquefield shared a brief word and prayed for the workers.
Moving forward
Hauss agreed. “We were able to start building relationships with BlueOval City workers,” he affirmed. “Our heart is to assist in reaching people for Christ and planting churches moving forward,” Hauss added.
Watkins expressed appreciation for the opportunity to be involved in BlueOval City. “At the end of the day, it is all about sharing the gospel,” he stressed.
The pastor cited Matthew 9:37-38 in which Jesus asked His disciples to pray for workers for the harvest.
“Today was an answer to the prayer that Jesus prayed so many years ago,” Watkins said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Lonnie Wilkey and originally published by Baptist and Reflector.
