Food Pantry Provides Gospel Proof in Pasco

By Richie Brower

Upper Columbia Conference Serve One More Associate Director

When we live out the gospel, it’s attractive. That’s the quiet reality being lived by Pasco Riverview Adventist Church members and their community. Every week, Adventist members, Church of Latter-day Saints missionaries and neighbors come together to support around 1,500 families with their basic food needs.

Recipients often express their gratitude with tears and even handwritten notes of appreciation. The pantry opens its line at 6:30 a.m. and operates until 12 p.m. each Wednesday. This means that some volunteers arrive as early as 3 a.m. to make sure everything is ready to go by opening time.

There is more going on here in Pasco than sharing meals — much more. Each week before opening the line for clients on their way to work, the team of volunteers pauses to share prayer requests, stories and a season of prayer together. Over time, this has bonded a diverse group into what one volunteer now calls her “home.” 

Some might ask, “Why are we doing this? Where are the baptisms?” Jason Worf, Pasco Riverview Church pastor, shared, “I previously pastored a church with a food bank, which regularly served about 40 people. There were a lot of people who really valued the food bank and that ministry, but there were people who said, ‘Why are we doing this? They should work.’ and ‘What's the point of this investment? They’re not really becoming Adventists.’”

“We’re not preaching to them. We don’t have an evangelistic series going. And the truth is, we do this because this is the culture of God," said Worf. "This is the heart of God. He loves simply because He loves, not because He’s going to get something back, not because He’s going to win a convert or get somebody to fall in love with Him. He just loves because that’s who He is. I think that’s what we need to do as a church.”

The scope of what these volunteers do every week is amazing. The passion, joy and openness to creating a broader team of community volunteers is inspiring. The affection among team members is obvious, and that is impacting some who are finding themselves drawn toward Jesus by the experience of serving alongside His people.

Ellen G. White said this would be the case. In Letters and Manuscripts, she wrote, “Christians are to love one another as Christ has loved them. Upon the manifestation of this love hinges the world’s recognition of the truth of the gospel."

Worf concluded, “It's not that evangelism should be replaced by service, but evangelism can’t work without service.”

Watch a short video about Pasco Food Pantry at news.uccsda.org/servecafe526.