Sacred Heart Parish has become a “God wink” for a Huntington area food bank.
“They’ve been an answer to prayer,” Janet Walker said about the parishioners of the Adams Avenue church.
Walker is the director of Storehouse Food Bank, a food pantry housed in the old Jefferson School building which sits on the same block as Sacred Heart. The food pantry which provides perishable and non-perishable groceries for 70-100 households is a ministry of Celebration Church, a Pentecostal congregation.
“It never fails if we are low on a certain item for that week’s distribution to families, Sacred Heart always ends up toting over exactly what was needed to fill the shelves,” Walker said. “It’s true. I shake my head sometimes thinking that this is definitely unexplainable.”
That is exactly what a God wink is – divine intervention not just a mere coincidence.
“Janet has told us that often she would worry during the week, because they don’t have fruits or vegetables; cereal or breakfast items; bread; and so on, but then we show up with exactly what was needed,” Lena Adkins, parish secretary said.
Adkins said one day she and Walker were marveling about how well the two faith communities work together. “We are rising above the odds,” Adkins said.
“The God you pray to is the same God we pray to,” Adkins told Walker. “He knows what is needed and finds people willing to help. He guides us all.”
Both churches are located in a depressed part of town where the drug crisis is obvious. They agree that coming together out of concern for the community is a bond created by God not man.
Walker agrees.
“Our work is the work of Jesus,” Walker said. “Everything I know about Jesus is that he is practical. He went around taking care of people. He did his evangelization of course, but in all that He did He took care of people. That’s what we are doing at Celebration Church and Sacred Heart.
“God wants us to fast by giving time, self, and the items we can,” Walker said. “Isaiah 58 is about giving to the hungry and providing for the homeless. We are fulfilling the roles within God’s plan.”
Specifically, Isaiah 58:7 states, “Share your bread with the hungry, your home to the poor. Clothe them. Do not turn your back on them.”

To find out more about this program and other humanitarian ministries at Sacred Heart Parish in Huntington email them at shccwv@gmail.com.

#FaithInWV #GodWinkAtSacredHeart