The scent of vegetable stew lingers in the air, and the familiar melody of “I’ll Fly Away” drifts through the atmosphere. People are lined up and down the parking lot, waiting to share a hot plate of food with their family, and fellowship with the volunteers who donated their work and time to this event.

Wedged between the Texarkana Public Library and the Randy Sams Shelter, a local Christian organization titled “Christians Warriors” aided the homeless in a parking lot Palm Sunday lunch on March 25. Bowls of soup were lined up on tables, cool drinks were passed out and traditional hymns could be heard throughout the meal. Toddlers to senior citizens roamed around the concrete expanse, sharing in the excitement and the generosity.

Spearheading the event is board member Micah Harp, who attends Victory Life Church in Nash. They are committed to serving the community through providing for those who need assistance most.

“Our whole thought process is that we’re a ministry that likes to build other ministries. If somebody comes to us and says ‘God has put this on my heart, this is something that I want to do, but I don’t have the funds, or the man power to do it,’ that’s where Christian Warriors come in. We like to help people build their ministries,” Harp said. “We do things ourselves as well, but that’s not our thought process, the main thing is to help build the kingdom. It was really hard for us to start our ministry, we didn’t have any of that, we had to go out and do that ourselves and I feel that the ministry would’ve got filled in and going a lot quicker if we would have had that help.”

Their mission is to be an extra leg in the community, so that others may begin assembling their outreach. With this in mind, they have monthly lunches and races to help foster relations.

“We do that once a month, every year we have two runs that we put on, one is in the fall, which is our ‘Worthy of Warmth’ run, where the entry fee is a coat. We take those coats and we distribute them out to the homeless here in the community or distribute them out to the underprivileged youth,” Harp said. “Then in the spring, we have our ‘Spread the Word’ run, which the entry fee is a bible. We’ll take the bibles and distribute those the same way.”

Feeding 80 to 130 people, the organization once started as a humble group of eight men. Since then, the ministry has expanded and is open to anyone who wishes to serve.

“We started with eight people, and since then we’ve had over a hundred be involved. A lot of people come and go as they please – you don’t have to come to every meeting to be a member. We want anybody and everybody,” Harp said. “The really cool thing about our group – this is my favorite thing about Christian Warriors – we don’t care what denomination you are. With just the eight men that started it, we had Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Non-Denominational, Church of Christ. There’s eight guys, eight leaders. God gave me the vision and I just got into touch with the people He told me to.”

While people were eating, volunteer musicians Hudson Davis and Mark Meadows strummed and sang classic worship songs. Kids and adults alike began to sing along and everyone started to smile when the humble melodies began to filter through.

“The homeless are close to my heart because the bible calls us to care for them,” Davis said. “Also, how could I sit idly by when it takes nothing to help them? You can completely make a homeless person’s day with just a few minutes of yours.”

When all is said and done, the Christian faith is essentially about serving and utilizing one’s strength to help others. Giving back to the community, whether it is through feeding the homeless or simply helping another person, has the power to transform an individual’s day.

“Listening to someone’s story and empathizing to some level of depth – who they are, what they need [is important],” Meadows said. “Ultimately it begins with listening to the Lion whisper and saying yes to His request.”