Hungry to Serve

When Tom and Elizabeth Anderson sought a new church home in 1990, family friends invited them to attend Saddleback Church. After hearing Pastor Rick preach that weekend, the two knew they wanted to call Saddleback their home.

“We loved the entire service, we really felt like God was speaking to us that this was where we needed to be,” Tom said.

Little did they know how big of an impact their decision would have on members of the community nearly two decades later.

In 2008, Tom retired from a career in which spent several years in the food industry. While Tom initially enjoyed the free time that retirement provided him with, he soon felt called to get right back to work in the form of volunteering.

“You can only play so many rounds of golf in a week,” Tom said.

Knowing that he wanted to be able to serve alongside Mark, who was 32 years old at the time and living with a permanent medical disability, Tom explored the church’s volunteer opportunities to see where he and his son could both serve God. With experience in the food industry, Tom couldn’t help but notice the need for volunteers at what was then only a five-month old service project started by the church: The Saddleback Food Pantry.

At the time the food pantry itself was located at a warehouse in an office park, just up the hill from the Lake Forest campus. The two signed up to serve together at the pantry, and after six weeks of serving, they knew that God was calling them to stay there as volunteers.

“Working at the food pantry kept me busy and really gave a chance to serve God through ministry,” Mark said. “When my sickness got really bad before then, I was stressed and always thought it was all about me, but serving and the pantry opened my eyes to the fact that there were more problems than just my own, that there are people struggling to provide food for themselves."

God’s will for Tom and Mark to remain as dedicated volunteers at the pantry became even more clear when suddenly the original volunteer base in the pantry warehouse began to fizzle out one by one due to busy personal schedules. Rather than feeling overburdened though, the father-son duo saw it as an incredible opportunity to pour their hearts out to God while bonding even closer in the process.

“Mark and I really had some great experiences in the warehouse when it was just the two of us. He has been able to serve God. He has been an inspiration to me and he has been inspired through all he has seen and done,” Tom said.

The two would not be alone in volunteering at the pantry warehouse forever though. After a year and a half of working in the warehouse alone, a new volunteer base had began to grow slowly but surely, all the way back up to a core team of 16 volunteers. Today the food pantry is thriving more than ever before, and distribution has now shifted from the warehouse itself to the PEACE Community Resource Center, a center at the Lake Forest campus where Orange County residents can come when they are in need of basic resources and assistance. The pantry even has distribution days at mobile locations such as one in Camp Pendleton in North San Diego County and at regional Saddleback campuses such as Corona and Laguna Woods, made possible by five trucks that transport food throughout the area.

With seven full years at the food pantry now under their belt, Tom and Mark have been able to reflect and cherish all the work that they have seen God do in the hearts of people who have come through the food pantry warehouse and PEACE Center.

“As one of the early volunteers at the pantry, I have seen all of the changes and all the people who have come in,” Tom said. “The most touching thing is to watch what happens to people who come through the pantry. They find open arms and people who want to show them love, give them hope, show them their purpose for living and share the love of Jesus Christ.”

The ministry work of the food pantry doesn’t stop with blessing those in need though. Tom and Mark have also had the opportunity to minister to those who regularly donate to the pantry yet are not affiliated with the church, such as employees at local grocery stores.

“On a number of occasions, we would drive the trucks to food places such as Walmart or grocery stores, and it was incredible seeing how much they donated, but I ran into people who asked what we were doing,’ Tom said. “We had the opportunity to share with them that we are with Saddleback Church and show them just how big of an impact their stores were making in doing God’s work.”

While so many others have been blessed by the food pantry in so many capacities, Tom and Mark feel that working at the food pantry for so many years and seeing so much change has been a blessing in itself. Through all the challenges that may have come their way, they have seen God do incredible things through the pantry and its volunteers.

“The blessings have been 100 percent returned on us,” Tom said. “The people who come in and give up their time to serve…..we want to be there every week. We’ve made a commitment to God that we will fulfill his mission as long as we are able to. You never know how many people will show up. We always pray and ask God to give us the amount of people we need to get his work done.”

Tom and Mark didn't know what plans God had in store for them when they first wanted to volunteer together, but God used them to help build what was once just a startup food pantry into a thriving core element of Saddleback's PEACE ministry. Serving God may start with small steps and humble beginnings, but with patience and through trusting in him, he can use us to serve the community in greater ways than we could ever imagine.

Click HERE to learn more about The PEACE Center at Saddleback Church.