For the last five years, on the Monday evening before Thanksgiving Day, a large number of buses and vans from many different churches in the Roanoke Valley have parked in a row beside the First Baptist Church Family Life Center. The buses and vans, as well as individual vehicles, start out around 6:00 p.m. to gather up inner-city Middle School and High School students and bring them to First Baptist Church. The students are offered a wonderful sit-down candle lit Thanksgiving Dinner. These students are the ones who attend Club Night and various other functions at our Acts 2 facility and are faithfully ministered to by our dedicated staff.

 While our staff shares the message and love of Christ through out the year, another opportunity to share the Love of God is given after the dinner as well as an invitation to accept Christ as their Savior. Mainly the dinner is a time to just love on the students.

On hand for this rather monumental undertaking are members of The Genesis Class and the New Directions Class from First Baptist Church, along with the Board of Directors and the staff of the Acts 2 Ministries as well as volunteers from other churches and ministries in the valley.

Early on Monday morning members from the two Sunday school classes, ladies from the mission group at FBC, volunteers from other churches and staff from FBC arrive at Phelps Hall. After prayer over the dinner they start setting up and decorating the tables with decorations and paper products that have been secured and donated in the weeks and months before the dinner. Staff from Acts 2 is on hand to help, as well as to set up the sound system.

Food that has been donated from various places and individuals is picked up and delivered to the church late in the day. Around 5:00 p.m. people start coming from work to prepare for the evening. The "waiters and waitresses" are dressed in black slacks and white shirts. The table hosts and hostesses and the serving line crew do not have to adhere to a particular dress code.

The drivers who are getting ready to depart the church to pick up the students are prayed over. The table hosts and hostesses are prayed over. The serving line crew is prayed over. The entire evening is prayed over! Actually, for weeks prior to the dinner, much prayer by many individuals has already been offered for all aspects of the dinner and for those who will attend!

As the nearly 200 students start arriving, they are seated with a volunteer table host and wait to be served a marvelous dinner of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, rolls, cake and iced tea.

As the evening comes to a close and the vans and buses leave to take students home, volunteers pack up food and smoked turkeys that have been donated to give to ten families in the Acts 2 area. Then many of our volunteers stay and start the process of un-decorating and packing up everything to be used again next year.

This year we had, I think, the most respectful, best-behaved group of students ever. They were hugely entertained by several of their classmates and then Lee Pusha spoke to them concerning Christ's mercy. They were then asked to fill out a card on which they could indicate their desire to know more about Christ or other choices they may wish to make. It was a wonderful evening of interacting with a great bunch of students.

Please ask how you can be a part of this annual dinner next year!!!!