NRB Chronicles 2023: Salem Out Reach Network

Well, how fun! It really is fun today because we're on the convention floor of the National Religious Broadcasters' Convention in Orlando, and sometimes you've got to go all the way to Orlando to talk to somebody who literally lives around the corner.

But very, very cool. God uses these passions and these gifts and talents and all to build the kingdom in so many different, beautiful ways. And actually, a dear friend of the Truth Network on a lot of levels that I've never talked to him about, but now I'm finding out about something new. We've got Kurt Feldmayer, whose daughter actually works for us here at Truth Network, but I was not aware at all of this one passion of yours, which is the Salem Outreach Network.

Yes, yes. Well, first of all, Robbie, thank you for having us here today. Oh, my pleasure. I appreciate it. The NRB Conference has been quite amazing, learning a lot, so good to see you here.

It is great to see you, and I'm actually just kind of blown away. I've certainly known about so much of the other things you do, but this one is new. So tell us about Salem Outreach Network. Thank you for asking.

Robbie, it's really not new. We're celebrating our 25th year this year, and we started from humble beginnings, doing music evangelism, church planting around North Carolina, the West Salem area in particular. Then we moved from there and we've done local nonprofit work, international missions, and disaster relief to now during COVID, we really found a need to reach people that were displaced, that were shut in, that were lonely, depressed. So what we've been doing the last several years is called Kingdom Care Packages. Those are simply an opportunity for us to bless people, for us to encourage people, for us to give them some hope during this strange season that we've all experienced.

Of course, we do it all in the name of Jesus, and we want to share the love of Christ above all things, and hopefully not just give them some joy for today, but also hopefully eternal joy through Jesus Christ. Oh, wow. So it's cool that you not only do this, obviously, locally in North Carolina, so I'm sitting there looking at your global map, and I see all kinds of big red dots down in the lower part of Africa, and it looks like Eastern Europe and Asia and all these.

How did you find out that, oh, we've got to send a care package over here? Well, years ago we started it, and we named it the Salem Outreach Network. So it truly is a network of ministries that are gospel-focused, are evangelical, conservative, love Jesus, high regard for the Bible, and we just wanted to network together. So leveraging each other's strengths, so some people are great at logistics and have contacts overseas, other people are givers, and they just want to enjoy the gift of giving and sow into other people's ministries and help them grow. So that's sort of what Salem Outreach Network is. It truly is a network of folks doing outreach locally, globally, and eternally, again, all in the name of Jesus. And so what was one that, you know, obviously in a lot of different ways, you've been involved with this kind of ministry for, like you said, a long, long time. Well, here recently since COVID, what was one of them that just kind of blew you away, like, man, I can't believe God has us doing this in this place? Well, our focuses are children, active duty military, and elderly shut-ins and widows in particular.

And I tell you, we're really passionate about the last one for sure, and we see that as a remarkable opportunity for growth, not just in encouraging people, but to really bring some maternal fruit. And so with the shutdowns, people are isolated. They've been isolated due to poor health or even mobility issues and distance away from family members. Some instances their families were even prevented from visiting them in their homes.

And so mental health is a big issue, especially for this population. Again, they're isolated. And so we saw that just locally, just in our own neighborhood. We're surrounded, it seems like, by widows. And I don't know about you, but when God calls you to do something, suddenly that might be all that you can see. So suddenly all I saw were widows.

All I saw were lonely elderly folks. And I just started to notice, and God gave us a burden for that, certainly in particular. And so what we do is we simply go and visit folks personally. We may deliver them groceries. We may help them in their yard work, take out their trash and do things like that. But most of the time we just show up unannounced, without an appointment, and we give them a Kingdom Care package. And that could include any number of things.

It could be household items or health care items and things. Just something to make them, you know, just give them encouragement. So we do that on like every holiday, Christmas and Easter and other holidays. But the most important thing we do is we listen to them. And we spend time with them. We chat with them. And we always close in prayer. And I always want to give them an opportunity to perhaps come to the Lord, even in that moment. That's fascinating. You may or may not know that we have the Jesus labor love, right?

And so as you were saying it, I couldn't help relate and go, yeah, I remember that. Because when I started doing the Christian Car Guys show, I anticipated, my guess was, that I would have mostly male listeners. That isn't what happened. What happened was all my emails and calls and everything I got were from single moms and widows. Because they'd lost their husband, whatever, and they didn't know how to fix it. They didn't know how to take it.

They didn't know who to trust. And so here they hear this guy on the radio. And I was there. And so everybody in my life was like, you know, that I could see what God was calling me to was this became the Jesus labor love.

The single moms, widows, and families in crisis. And so that clearly was something. And very similarly, a lot of times the biggest thing I can do for them is just listen to their story.

Because they're dying to tell somebody how horrible all this stuff has been that they've gone through and then pray with them. It's exactly, it's, it's, that's how that works. And it's amazing too, where it's, it's nothing, we're not doing anything original.

Okay. We're not doing anything that other people aren't doing. But what we're trying to do is just really focus in first locally.

Who's around you? And that's one thing I want to encourage our listeners to do is just take a, take a walk through the neighborhood and see who might need help. And it might not be help as in they need financial help. A lot of the folks that we work with have beautiful homes, you know, but, um, loneliness is a, is a very serious thing.

And I've seen people make ridiculously dumb decisions just because they're lonely. Okay. But I want to, I want to share a neat testimony, um, from a lady that, uh, we just recently dropped off something and spent some time with. Um, and she says, quote, Salem Outreach Network, thank you for stopping by with this gift of encouragement this afternoon. I definitely felt seen and soothed today when y'all came by to give me this gift and chat for a few minutes. May God bless your efforts and desires for ministry as you go along the journey of life.

Thank you for the prayer. I so appreciated that the most. That pretty much sums that part of it up. Yeah.

It's, you know, the other ministry that I do and I'm sure Morgan might even told you is that every week I go to retirement home in Mocksville and I've done this for effort. Yes. Right.

And, and unfortunately so many of the residents will tell me, you know, nobody from my church has ever come to this, you know, they don't have any family that comes to see them because people don't like to go into nursing homes because it's depressing. Right. Right.

Right. From their perspective, from my perspective, there's no more fun place to go. And because you think that you're going there to minister, but Oh no, no, no, no, no. They are going to minister to you. It's true. It's true. And uh, they will love on you.

They will pray for you. Yes. Say they will do all that.

And what happens is you essentially sit, share Jesus with people that just are so wonderful. Yes. Right. It's true. It's true.

And it's as hard to find as going around the corner and I'll bet you there is a retirement home and assisted living, something like that. And then you just, each of those have like, you remember watching the love boat? Yes. They have an activities director, right? Julie.

Yeah. They all have a Julie. Every single one of them, they have a Julie and Julie will hook.

If they have a good Julie, she will hook you up with some kind of thing, whatever your gifting may be. And that's, that's, I love that. That's your message. In other words, you know, everybody can do this. Yes.

Now, like I said, it's not unique. One of the things we like to do, we need to team up together by the way, cause we, we do a praise and worship. We do a concert. Uh, one of my, no, Morgan tells me. Yeah. Yeah. We pray for you guys sometime when you're on. Thank you. Morgan plays guitar.

Her younger sister Ashlyn, she plays keyboard, uh, marvelously and they both sing and they lead worship. And uh, it's amazing to think or to see, you know, a lot of folks that can't get out and they're clapping their hands or they're raising their hands and they're singing the songs, especially when we do a hammer too. And um, just what the joy is. And I remember, um, last time we were there, it was this, this gentleman in a U S Marine Corps hat and I thanked him for his service and he was not very receptive to what we were doing. I felt like somebody dragged him, drug him there, you know. But um, when we started passing out the care packages, that broke the ice.

That really broke his heart exterior and he was able to receive and we just, you know, he said no at first. And I said, look, we just want to give you a little bit of encouragement. Just let you know that they were thinking about you, that you're not forgotten and that, you know, somebody cares about you today. Just wanted to show a little bit of love. Well, that was all it took.

And then we sat there and talked for forever and ever. You know, that's a great segue to one of our other um, outreaches is military care packages. You know, for many of the same things, you know, uh, a lot of our military, they're young. You know, they're right out of high school many times and, and um, they're maybe out of the country for the first time and um, you know, they need a little touch from home.

Again, nothing unique. We just do it consistently. We do it regularly. And uh, I like to say Salem Outreach Network is a, it's a small ministry with big connections. So right now we're working with, uh, The biggest actually.

That's right. Through Christ. He does give us a lot of favor.

I can promise you that. But like for their military care packages, we have the privilege of working with a retired Admiral, uh, who is over all of the chaplains in the US Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Reserves. And so he is helping us reach out to active duty, uh, deployed and also reserve units that get called up. And um, we've also through those contacts been able to serve, uh, something that's dear on our heart is children. And through the US Army, we were able, uh, to send hundreds of care packages to the largest vacation Bible school in the US Army serving over 300 military children in South Korea last year. And so that was just a really great thing to do. And we were just so joy, you know, here's a testimony right here from Staff Sergeant Kevin.

I'm not going to release his last name, but he says, we received so many care packages from you and your network. The favorites of which were the flashlights that we're able to use for our vacation Bible school, the largest in the US Army. It was amazing that others were used for our military women's retreat, which reached more than 150 women from across Korea.

We cannot thank you enough. That's just so meaningful to us. And, and, uh, you know, my father served in World War II. I still have his letters that he wrote home to his mother and, uh, to grandma.

And, uh, it's just so, uh, so important to support our military as well. Oh, wow. I hate, we're out of time, but people can reach you at Salem outreach.com.

Yes, sir. Salem outreach.com. Kurt Fellmeyer. It's Kurt at Salem outreach.com. If you want to reach him personally and, and who do you want to reach out to you? Salem outreach.com. You know, I'd like churches, uh, that might have a place they want to do a packing party or something of that nature or, um, people that just want to give, you know, new toys to the, our children's outreach or help us build and, and, or fund and just create a beautiful creative care packages that we can go out and give again, all in the name of Jesus. There you go. Salem outreach.com. Thank you. Kurt. God bless you.