Mercy Chefs "Hey Buddy" Podcast
Mercy Chefs "Hey Buddy" Podcast
Growing Mercy Chefs Global in Latin America
Nick remotely joins Carl, our Chief Global Officer, and Wanda, our Director of Latin America, to explore the rapid growth of Mercy Chefs Global. They discuss the impact of local church networks, the new mobile field kitchen trucks reaching isolated communities, and how a simple fresh orange shifted a boy’s outlook on life in Ukraine.
Hello and welcome to the Mercy Chefs Hey Buddy podcast. I'm your host, Nick Beckman, joined today by two of my colleagues from the Mercy Chef's Global team. Carl, it's nice to have you back on the podcast, my friend. Thanks, Nick. Good to be back. And for her debut, uh, we have Wanda Augusto as well. Wanda, it's great to see you. How are you?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing great, Nick. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. You guys are coming to us from Puerto Rico, as is evidenced by the beautiful background. Um, and Wanda, that's where you live. Tell us a little bit about uh your history in ministry and how you came to be a part of the Mercy Chef family.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, my pleasure. Um, well, I live in Puerto Rico. I've been here for eight years, but I've been in ministry for about 21 years as pastors and missionaries. We've pastored in the States and in Central America and Honduras. And God called us back to Puerto Rico about eight years ago for her, right before Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Did not know why he was calling me back, but it was evident when I arrived that he had something for me to do here. And we went right to work, and it's um it's been eight years of just serving God here, and from here we're going into the world.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And obviously that is uh when you met Mercy Chefs, right? Because Mercy Chefs came to the island after Hurricane Maria.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yes, that's exactly right. Um, I think it was September 2017, eight years ago. We were hit with Hurricane Maria, and within a week or two, um, Chef Gary came to Puerto Rico, and he came to serve and to see what we needed. And of course, the island was devastated. And immediately we were able to start feeding communities, and Mercy Chef was a big vital part of restoring the island and working through our churches here. And so it's been, it's been a journey, a beautiful journey that came out of a disaster, but there's always a purpose and great things have come out of it.
SPEAKER_02:Truly. And it's been a pleasure to work with you. We've gotten the chance to work together uh quite a bit over the last couple of years. Um, and so we're gonna discuss today kind of the work uh that goes on on the Mercy Chefs Global side and specifically how it relates to our work in Latin America. You might be familiar based on our previous conversations with Carl and others, that Mercy Chefs Global goes all across the globe. Um but today we're gonna focus in a little bit and we're gonna talk about some of the programming that's going on um in Latin America throughout this hemisphere and and and the incredible stuff that these two get to be a part of day in and day out. So let's start at the beginning. Carl, tell me a little bit, for those who maybe not know, uh, the heart behind Mercy Chefs Global and how it's just a little bit different, but also very much the same to what we do here domestically.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um yeah, it is it is very much the same. I mean, it's Mercy Chefs, it's feeding body and soul um where there's need and where people are hurting um from storm or um whatever the crisis is, um mercy chefs, we have the heart to to be there and stand with people on their worst day and give them a beautiful, chef-prepared, nutritious meal uh and see Jesus uh do what only he can do through that meal. Um and see communities and and villages or communities uh infused with hope in times of devastation. And so globally, um, you know, we don't we don't have the luxury of being able to drive in trucks and trailers from the next state over um or have robust network, church networks and things that we can work through and call. So um it always looks a little different depending on what country we're in, what region we're in, um, what island we're on, on how we're gonna piece together that, how that meal is gonna come together. Um, but the end product looks very similar. It's a it's a quality plate of food given in love to somebody that's in real desperate need of it. So um it's fun because globally, even domestically, it's always a big puzzle of where's the need, how do we access that need, how do we get the resources we need to be able to prepare those meals, you know, figure out the kitchen. Um globally, we start with a blank slate almost every time. So it's it starts from finding the people on the ground, the church partners that we can work with, um, getting favor with the local officials um and those that are in charge to be able to gain access to the areas. Um, where can we build a kitchen? Oftentimes we have to build kitchens on on location uh and start putting out those delicious meals.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah. Carl, you mentioned in there uh our work here domestically and how it relates to the church um in the U.S., um, how we're always focused on partnering with the church in the U.S. disaster response. But I know that's such a heart and such a key piece of what we do globally as well. Wanda, tell me more about what that partnership looks like with local churches when we we parachute in and we we're in a place for the first time. What's it like to work with, to find those networks of pastors and churches in those communities?
SPEAKER_00:It's kind of challenging, really, because even stateside is challenging to find the right partner, the right church that could work with us. So imagine adding to that that we go to places where we've never been there before. Sometimes we have language barrier, we have culture barriers. There's different things that we encounter that we don't encounter stateside. Um, so it's always a miracle to be able to fight, to find the right partner that we can work with. But God somehow makes a way. Um, we get to pray a lot, we get to depend on God, we ask Him for guidance. And when we see there's a need because of a disaster or a critical situation going on in any country, we begin reaching out to our friends, our partners, even stateside, and asking, do you know someone in this country? And once we land in the country, we need to start building a relationship with them. Many of these churches, we don't have a prior relationship. So you can imagine trying to build a relationship in the midst of a crisis, learning how the culture and how the country runs, where to find the provisions, the groceries, even trying to understand the menus that we're gonna cook because we want to be relatable. We want to make sure that we prepare a delicious hot meal that they recognize and that brings comfort to them. So we want to prepare meals that they know. So there's a lot of learning that has to happen in a very fast time frame under a lot of pressure and um in a quick turnaround time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It wander's right, it's hard. But we we live and die by those the local church. You know, Mercy Chefs, we pride ourselves um by by being there quickly and staying the longest. We never want to be a flash in the pan. Um and and we do that incredibly well domestically, and we do that well internationally, but it's also harder internationally because we don't live there. Uh, but it's the local church that gives us that that staying power. You know, we never want to just just be a flash in the pan and feed somebody for a day and we're gone the next day once the news cycle moves on. We want to be able to stay as long as that community has pressing need. And so we're able to do that by really pouring into and and building the local churches and the local response capacity um so that they can carry on and and we can carry on through them that way.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And you guys are are so good at building relationships. I've been on trips with Wanda in the past where um her phone rings and it's a pastor from XYZ place, whether it be Argentina or somewhere in the Caribbean or somewhere in Mexico. Um, you do a really great job of staying in touch with those pastors. And speaking of Argentina, um, excitingly, we've just been able to open up uh a brand new facility there. Talk to me about our immediate response to the disaster there, Carl, and how we've um stayed there and how that sticking power has moved into a permanent facility for us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Argentina, I mean, beautiful country, um, incredible things happening there. They also get repeat disasters, uh, be it flooding primarily, um, they're exposed to earthquakes, things like that. Um, and then recently there's been a lot of uh just crisis within the government and within the economy, um, and a lot of people losing jobs and food insecurity really rising in the country. And so we had a beautiful church partner there that was really trying to make a stance and say, how do we serve these families that now have no food in their pantries due to this growing crisis? How do we how do we walk with them? How do we stand with them? Um and so we were able to build with them in partnership a kitchen that can serve daily meals uh to families in need in their community uh and be kind of a lighthouse for for that community and for the other churches that are in the area is really a model on um what does it look like for for a church to not just not just see the need in their community, but but be proactive in and meeting that need on a daily basis. Uh, and then also having the capacity to when the next flood happens, when the next landslide happens, how can we move from being able to serve you know several hundred meals a day to you know surge capacity to be able to meet the increased needs? So now we're moving thousands of meals a day. So um that kitchen is really a model for us that we want to see and can see replicated, not just across Argentina, but we're also looking in Brazil. Um we've responded there to devastating flooding. And and really how do we set these churches up to be better equipped uh on their community's worst day?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's incredible um watching you guys go and do this. Now, for the for the listeners, you know, it's easy for me to say we've built a kitchen in Argentina. What does that entail? Talk to me through, talk to me about the equipment that that we're installing and the facility that it's in and um some of the details that that are paramount to your guys' work. You've been working on this kitchen for a long time now, and I'm I know you guys know it in and out.
SPEAKER_01:Argentina has been complicated, so I'll let Wanda expand on our equipment.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, it has taken us a long time to get the kitchen up and running in Argentina, just because there's been a lot of changes also um in currency and the exchange rate. And even as we're talking to the supplier about the equipment, we the first thing we do is we go and we kind of scout the place, we look at the space, we kind of think and plan and draw like how we want the kitchen to look, that it could be very functional for the local church, but that we can also search to thousands of meals a day if their disaster hits. So we want it to be versatile. And when we do that, we first have to go and find a local supplier that can provide the equipment. So, as you can imagine, we're not from the country. Now we're in a foreign country trying to find a supplier. We find the supplier and then we have to find out the exchange rate. But the exchange rate is not steady, it moves. So something that could have cost us X amount today, tomorrow, it's a different amount. So we need to stay on top of it. We need to talk to the supplier. Um, how do we get the money into the country? How do we provide the funds? We order the equipment. We're thousands of miles away. So we, of course, work through the local church. Um, but the most of the time, the local church doesn't have the expertise of building a kitchen. So we got to constantly communicate back and forth to make sure that the kitchen is being installed and built the way we need it to be built. Um, and they've done a great job. They've done a great job just keeping us posted. Where we've been on conferences calls constantly looking at pictures of equipment. Um, they had to redo some of their building structure to fit the equipment. And now soon we'll be going to see the kitchen, um, train the people. Because not only do we want to put the kitchen in, we want to make sure that the church is trained to use all the equipment that's there, and they can just take full advantage of what we've placed so they can serve the community the best way they can. So we're very excited to go back to Argentina, um, train the local people. Because, like Carl said, we can go in and be there for a day or two, maybe a week or two. We've been at places at a month. We don't want to leave quickly, but we can't be there forever. And so we need the local church to really take on the mantle and run with it and continue to feed body and soul. The beautiful thing is that as they do that, they also get to disciple people. They also get to show God's love. And when we do it through the local church, this opens the door, the food opens the door to bring people into the church through a plate of food because there's a need, but then they can provide hope and they can provide the good news of the gospel. And we're seeing churches globally just planted and being birthed out of the ministry of feeding communities that are in need.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Gosh, it really is so beautiful. And I'm so excited for that kitchen in Argentina and what it's able to, uh what it's enabling the local church to do there, and how you guys have been so diligent in making sure that it is built and built well and and setting them up for success. We're excited to see what continues to move in Argentina. Speaking of building kitchens, the three of us have all been very involved in a project, an exciting project. Um, and you'll have to, you guys will have to cut me off because I could sit here and talk about trucks for for the rest of the afternoon. Um, but I'm not sure anybody would want to listen to that. So let's talk about the the newest um member of what I would call the Mercy Chef's Fleet in El Salvador. Um we just completed at the at the start of this year um a series of trucks that we're calling the mobile field kitchen. Um talk to me through, Carl, uh, the the idea behind that, what need it serves, and then we'll get into kind of how we built it and and where we see it going.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um the the need came out of really just being part of several responses in Central America, um, which typically we're talking about uh storms, uh flooding, earthquakes. Um, and oftentimes what comes with those are landslides, um, especially in Honduras and El Salvador, Guatemala, these areas that are mountainous, uh, the roads on good days are are passable. Um, but a lot of these mountain villages and stuff where the really the the severe need is, where poverty is um just unimaginable on good days, they're places that are hard to reach when the roads are passable. Um they're still hard. And so then what happens is storms come in, a landslide happens, and these communities that we need to reach are cut off. Um, typical vehicles can't get there. Um, definitely not a regular kitchen truck. Um, and then even us bringing in hot meals, you know, sometimes we were driving like close to eight hours trying to get to these villages. Yes. Um, and it's hard to maintain, you know, our temperatures with that, um, with our food and things. So um the need really came out of how how do we better reach these places that nobody else is able to access, but the need is is the the most desperate in. Um, so we came up with a like mobile field kitchen design, which are basically large four-wheel drive trucks um that that house everything we need uh for a kitchen, but can deploy off of those trucks into um you know these heavy-duty tent shelters, and then those trucks are able to be used as supply vehicles, getting bringing stuff back in. Um, so they're they're refrigerated so that we can keep our meat and produce cold. Um, and then we have uh large pans that we can do um every pan will do about a thousand, a little over a thousand portions out of one pan. Um so this truck with this truck, we can do you know, somewhere around 7,500 meals a day out of this truck and see that scale as we add pans and burners to it. But but really the the goal with them is how do we access where the need's the greatest uh that we didn't have access to before. So and then being in Central America and how there's been some stabilization that's coming with El Salvador the last few years, we're able to move this truck not and not just serve one country, but we can serve a region with this truck now. Um yeah, it's it's exciting. It really is.
SPEAKER_00:Super exciting.
SPEAKER_02:I love that truck. And and again, I'm I'm not gonna talk about it all day, but but we could. It's it's a really exciting uh platform for us, and I'm excited to see what it enables us to do and where it enables us to reach. Um, and and there's lots of places like you're talking about mountain region, um, small communities that that often go overlooked, even by their own, um, their own neighbors down the mountain or up the mountain. And and it's gonna be an honor to be able to get into those hard places. Um, getting four-wheel drive trucks in El Salvador, who would have known it would be so difficult? Uh, that's a story for a different day. We can we can go into the intricacies of of building that. Um, but I want to I want to zoom out a little bit and kind of go back to the inception of of Mercy Chefs Global and Wanda, you kind of coming onto the team full-time with us. Um, you know, you'd worked with us it all the time before you were a full-time staff member. You were still a part of the family. But um, I know that you guys sat down with Gary and and kind of vision casted and talked about what where's the need in Latin America? And there were a few places, very specific countries that you guys had in mind that those are the places that we need to be. Those are the hard-to-reach places. That's that's where the good stuff happens, that's where the meat of this work can happen. Um, tell me about those places and Wanda, one of which you just you just returned from.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely. Um, has Gary and I said and talked about vision casting for Latin America. Um, we we knew that there's a lot of countries that are vulnerable to disasters, but also there are countries that don't need a disaster. They live a disaster, it has an everyday routine. And some of those countries, even like Honduras, um, Guatemala, Nicaragua, but just another one that just I just recently came back from like last week, was Cuba. And Cuba is one of those countries that it's a very hard place to get into, it's a hard place to serve. Um, and they don't need a disaster. People are literally starving in Cuba. They do not have food, they don't have access to food. Um, and so it's a place that was very close to our heart. Um, when we sat, Gary and I just dreamed of one day going to Cuba and being able to feed. Um sorry, I'm still, it's it's hard when you go to a place where you know the need is so great. And you are just wanting to give them that plate of food to nurture them and to give them hope and to tell them that God has not forgotten them. And so just last week I was in Cuba and we went to this small city on the east side called Ogin, and inside the province of Ogin, there's a town called Mayari. And when we went there, what really impacted me was that in spite of Cuba being such a place of need, um, there is no, there's a lot of people that are bound and can't have access to all the freedoms that we do backstayside, they still have so much joy. And just this plate of food brought them so much happiness, joy, hope. And people just thanked me everywhere I went. Thank you, thank you, thank you, they would say for bringing hope. And you would think that a simple plate of food um would not cause that type of reaction. But the people literally, this plate of food meant that they can live now and not die of starvation. So it's amazing to get to be the hands and feet and to go to these hard places where it's difficult. But God opens doors, He partners us with great people on the ground that are willing also to sacrifice and do the difficult things of finding groceries wherever it may be, drive hours to find rice and beans, and that has opened the doors to really share the gospel in Cuba. And to tell you the truth, Cuba is in revival. Um, there's revival happening in Cuba because people are getting to know Jesus through a plate of food, a hot meal, a delicious meal, and because of that, they are finding Jesus. So I'm excited to see what God is doing in Cuba, and I feel so honored and humbled to be able to fulfill one of our dreams of reaching the unreachable.
SPEAKER_02:It's beautiful. The the church is alive and well across the globe. I think that's one of the things that as I discuss with you guys in our our weekly team calls or or just in personal conversations, what you guys get to see in the church, big C church across the globe is just incredible. And it gives me so much hope and so much faith that that people across the world do have faith in the midst of circumstances like they're facing in Cuba and in Venezuela, um, in Honduras and Guatemala. Um, it's it's it's just incredible, and and I'm so honored um to get to work with the two of you who I know you guys have traveled a lot um together in these last couple years and and even before. Um talk to me about what it's like working together, um, the two of you. And and Carl, what what have you learned from Wanda in the last couple of years of of working side by side on this?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's uh it's a huge honor to be able to run with Wanda. Um Wanda, I mean, she she shared her her and her head husband Edgar have been pastors forever, but Wanda's a pastor at the heart. Like um something that that I really have learned and value so much from Wanda is no matter how chaotic the situation, no matter how big the need in front of us, she never loses sight of the individual person that's in front of her. Um, she sees people so well. Um and I think she she doesn't only just see them, but she she ministers to them, she reaches to them. She, I've never gone on a trip, not a single trip, where Wanda didn't almost daily cry and hold somebody just in her arms. And Wanda's handling a lot. Wanda's our director of Latin America. So when I'm on a trip with her, she's the boss, she's running the show. Um, she's got a lot on her plate, and she never once misses the opportunity to love the a single person in front of her and be Jesus to those people in that moment. And it's it's powerful. Uh, it goes well beyond just the plate of food that's in them, but really you see the person's heart open up and and begin to be transformed. Um, and so that's that's what I value about her is how she loves people and individuals so well, regardless of of the stress she's under, the responsibility she's under, or the a lot of people, the need is overwhelming. And and if you focus on the one, you you you miss the opportunity to serve the mass. Uh, but that's not how Jesus sees it. Jesus never looks past the one in front of him, and that's that's how Wanda sees it as well.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Pastor, you're you're you've taught us, uh, both of us. I can I can reiterate what Carl said, what it means to go into a place and to focus on the people rather than the problem. And so thank you. Um, Wanda, the the same to you. What is working with Carl taught you?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, so much, Nick. I've learned so much from Carl. Um, truly it is such an honor to run with Carl, work with him. Carl is um it just his heart. And even today, we were sharing a little earlier about his testimony, how he's called to go to the dark places to shine the light so bright. And that's something that I've learned to do so well through him because he really, um, when things are tough and I might want to give up because it's hard and it's difficult, and it's like that could be scary, and I can be scared. Um, he models what it is to really follow Jesus, follow Jesus to the places where people need to see Jesus. And when I'm, I might get scared and I might be looking around at the circumstances. He reminds me, keep your eyes on Jesus, keep them on Jesus. And so I've learned so much from Carr. I love his leadership, um, how he also really empowers us to run with the mission of feeding people, how he can lead when he needs to lead and when he needs to listen. And he says, I'm the boss when we're out, but truthfully, he's the boss. He's my boss. And I respect him and honor him. And so I love to see how he can do both things and just run with when I ask him to do something and kind of just listen to what I need to do. And other times I go to him and say, Hey, what do we do here? Because I'm I'm at loss. I don't know what to do. And he reminds me to just keep moving forward, even though it's difficult. So I really, really appreciate Carl, and thank you, Carl, for being such a great boss.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. She has to say that though, because I'm I'm the boss, so she's got to say nice things. That's an unfair question, Nick.
SPEAKER_02:No, we make it we make a good team. Every time I get people together, it's just have a little honey rose together.
SPEAKER_01:And don't ask us to say nice things about you, though.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't ask what you thought about me.
SPEAKER_01:I'm always thinking about you, Nick.
SPEAKER_02:I know you are. You guys are great. Um, and speaking of of you both kind of touched on it, speaking of the one and and how mercy chefs in general, mercy chefs global, mercy chefs work domestically, it it's all focused on people. Um, obviously, our our method is food and our end goal is kingdom work, but it's all focused on food. And um, you know, I think it's it's so beautiful how we can, you know, focus that effort into finding a person, um, a single person. It's easy when it's easy for us to look at big numbers and say, we did 5,000 meals today, we did 10,000 meals today, we did 600,000 meals this last quarter. Uh, and those are awesome and they're such great markers of the success and the blessing that has been bestowed on us. But it's so important to touch in on the one and find stories of the one person that you connected with. Um I'm not gonna make this too big of a question because you both work here a long time and and have had a lot of experiences, but recently tell me a story, each of you, about finding a one, a one person, who that was, where you were, and what that meant to you.
SPEAKER_00:Hmm. There's so many, Nick. Um, just to pick one is hard. Um let's see. I'm gonna maybe I'll pick one from last week from Cuba. Um last week, as we were just going about feeding people and we were um trying to find how to find food to be able to cook the meals to provide, um, we also got to visit many, many pastors. And in the process, um, because like you mentioned, I'm a pastor and I have a heart for pastors. I I know what they go through. Um, and in the midst of them telling me that they had such a huge need to feed the people in their church, we noticed a lady who had a son whose um the boy was sick. Um, the boy, could you can tell he had an infection in his eye, and it was very obvious that there was something wrong. And I was on the trip with my dear friend Jeanette, and her and I both looked and said, I think he needs medicine. And we were talking about the needs of the church, um, how we can feed the church, but here we have this child who is has a situation, a medical situation. And so immediately um Jeanette went to look for something, some medicine that she had. In the process, we asked, can we pray for the child? So we stopped what we were doing and we just pray for the lady. Um, and as we prayed for her, for the pastor, for her son, for the family, um, she was just humbled. She started to cry and said, Thank you. And that's what keeping your eye on that one person that it goes beyond just the hot meal. It goes beyond feeding. It's the need. You got to see the person what they need. Um, so many of these situations that we run into every day. Another one that's in my my mind is we were in Acapulco one time after the devastation of Hurricane Otis, and we're giving out hot meals. Um, and I see this lady who I can just tell that she was burdened, she was heavy. There was something that was happening. And as I just gave her her food, I looked at her and I said, Can I pray for you? And there was a Long line of people waiting for food, and I had to kind of break away from the team because I really felt heavy in my heart that I needed to pray for her. And has she shared her story? She shared how she had no food for her kids, that her husband had just left her a few days before. Uh, had left her a few days before. And um, she right before the hurricane, she was left alone with kids in her home without food. Um, and she was just devastated, heartbroken, that she was alone with no food, her house had been destroyed, her husband had left her. And so she just broke down and started crying in the middle of the street while I gave her her bowl, rice, and beans. And I was able to just pray with her and remind her that if God brought me all the way from Puerto Rico to Acaburco, that God had her, had her in his mind and had not forgotten about her. So those are the opportunities that God gives us to find that one person that just needs that extra love. That's not just a plate of food, but they need a hug, they need a prayer, they need that extra reminder that they are loved and not forgotten by God. And God gives us so many of those opportunities.
SPEAKER_01:One that one that just popped in my head uh was uh we were in Ukraine, uh, and I went into a bomb shelter, and the people had been down there for several weeks. They hadn't hadn't come out because the bombing was pretty heavy. Um and I we were bringing in food, but one of the things we were bringing in was uh fruit. And so I I happened to be carrying the the box of oranges in, and uh they hadn't had oranges in a long time. And there's a young boy sitting kind of on his makeshift bed, and and it's it's a bomb shelter. Like it's the we call a bomb shelter, but it's a basement, like it's dirt floor basement under the build big building. So dank, it's it's huge, it's it's not a fun place to be. Um and they hadn't seen sunlight in weeks. And I I tossed this boy, I don't speak uh other than a couple words of Ukrainian. Uh so I can't say anything to him. Um, but I just tossed this boy an orange, and he he was really just downcast and and he didn't even peel it, he just bit into it. And it's it's amazing when you see a bite of food literally change somebody's complexion. Like everything about this boy shifted in the moment. You could you could literally see obviously the the the food, the nutrition, the vitamin C, but we could see hope pierce this boy's heart. Wow. Um and I couldn't say words. I couldn't I couldn't talk to him. Um, but just tossing him an orange completely literally changed his complexion, changed everything about him. Um and it and it stuck with me. And it's, you know, it's that's that's the opportunity we get with with all of our food is to infuse somebody with hope. Yeah, the people we can talk with and cry with and get to connect with, you know, it's easier, easier for us to recognize the impact that we're having. Um, this boy, just that, that, that, the uniqueness of the situation. I could see the impact on his face through a bite. Um it's that one sticks with me.
SPEAKER_00:That's good.
SPEAKER_02:There's always something so special about fresh produce specifically, um, in areas of great and tremendous need. I might write but write a book on it someday. It's not a conversation for here, but what a special moment to to hand out a fresh piece of fruit. And and you're right, it really can change someone's entire outlook and really point towards the gospel in in a really beautiful way. So as we as we kind of wind down, Todd, I'm I'm always conscious of your guys' schedule. Um, I know doing global work takes a lot of uh planning and a lot of foresight and a lot of prep work ahead of time, and there's visas involved, and there's contacts with pastors, and there's all sorts of factors that go into your work. If you may, something Latin American focused, kind of where are we aiming through the end of the year? What are you excited about that we're doing? New initiatives, new programs, new contacts that we have throughout Latin America through the rest of this year and into early next year.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there's a lot of exciting things that we're looking forward to. Um, just in the next two months, we're preparing a holiday tour through Central America to use our beautiful newly built field kitchen trucks. And we're very, very excited because um we're gonna be bringing lots of joy and hope through meals in communities that the trucks permit us to get to. They're very remote, places that it would be very hard to reach without the trucks. And we're gonna be able to set up the kitchens right there and provide meals. So we're very excited about the holiday tour that we're gonna be doing, um, bringing Christmas joy to Central America. We'll be visiting Guatemala, we'll be visiting Honduras and El Salvador. Um, and in the future, I mean, we've already visited Nicaragua this year. We've visited Paraguay. In Paraguay, we went to some indigenous villages out in the remote where people have not even heard the name of Jesus yet. And it's so beautiful to see how um, because they believe that they can reconcile with the, as they say, the white people, the people that are not indigenous through a meal because food for them means reconciliation. So when we bring food into this village, what we're saying is, hey, we're bringing, we're coming in peace and we want to reconcile. We want to just kind of build our relationship. And so the meals opened a great opportunity to, after we feed them, to share the gospel with them. And just this year we were in Paraguay and we visited many villages, and we are supporting the local church there so they can continue to minister to 20 new villages that never heard Jesus before this year. And we're excited because we believe that in addition to Paraguay, we can reach the countries around Paraguay as they continue to spread out to other countries. And so we're very exciting. It's very exciting because we get to go to the places, to the ends of the earth to share the gospel. And that's biblical. Um, Jesus said, go into the world, go into every corner of the world. And I feel honored that we get to do this with Mercy Shaft. We get to go and actually bring a hot meal, bring hope in the form of a meal to places that are literally in every corner of the globe. And through the food, we get to share the gospel, see people get saved, see people get discipled, people get transformed and connected to their local churches. And the kingdom is growing. And so for us to be part of it, wow, I'm excited to what's gonna happen this rest of the year and next year.
SPEAKER_02:Amen. That's great. Carl, anything on your mind?
SPEAKER_01:No, like Wanda said, though those are the big things coming up in in Latin America. Um no, it's it's always it's always tricky because we have so many programs now going on all over the world. Yeah, our travel schedule is pretty full. Um but first and foremost, we're a disaster response organization. So then the storms happen in the midst of that, you know, and so we gotta be ready, ready, ready in season and out of season for for all of those things.
SPEAKER_02:So that's great. Well, Carl, Wanda, thank you so much for your time. Um, thank you for what you do here at Mercy Chefs across the globe. Folks, if you would please pray alongside us for these two, for the entire Mercy Chefs Global team, as they go to the dark places to shine the light. Please remember that what we're doing is food, but it is gospel focused. And we are here to share the love of Jesus on a plate. Um, pray for them as they go to these places, that doors would be opened and that um they would come with peace and with blessing, um, but not of our own accord, but but that would just point towards our Heavenly Father. Um, we ask that you pray along with us for the pastors that we work with in these small communities. Reminder, the church is alive and well across the world, but they are certainly facing hardship. It's our honor, it's this team's honor to go and to stand in the gap with them, to offer what we know, which is food. Um, but would you, along with us, pray for these pastors, for these congregants all across Latin America, all across the world, um, that they would see again doors open, that there would be revival um in places like Cuba. We praise along with that, but that there would be a stirring in these places where Mercy Chefs is honored to serve. Carl, Wanda again, thank you for your time. Good luck, Godspeed, and um I'll see you soon.
