This is the Truth Network. First Peter One talks about fiery trials that come upon believers. But what if you are actually in a fire? What if you were actually nearly Burned to death.
Well, I'm sitting next to a man who had that experience. He loves Jesus. It's true, he's on fire for God, and he was before, but literally. A absolute tragedy happened. Charles Myers, real quick, before we get into the circumstances of this, this is a remarkable story.
Tell us a little bit about who you are and your background and everything. I'm Charles Myers. I'm a 40-year-old male who loves Jesus. I am married and have two little girls. I am full-time employee at Hove City, the church.
And before that, I was a teacher for about 13 years. Uh, grew up in the Wahlberg community, went to high school at Ledford, and then went on for my undergrad at Left at High Point University and my master's from Gordon to Webb. And I got involved really with the Lord and got re and got baptized, I guess, for the real time, if you want to say, when I was around 20 years old in the ocean down in Florida by one of my spiritual fathers, Scott Reed. Awesome.
So you were. Late teens, or they were about 20 when you came to know Christ and got baptized?
Well, I grew up in the church and I was baptized actually when I was in the between the fifth and sixth grade. But You know, I was going through life and I realized that I wasn't truly living for the Lord. My life didn't look any different than a common person. You know, it just was no different than the world. And I want to set this up a little bit.
We're in Wahlberg, North Carolina. For those of you who haven't heard of Wahlburg, it's kind of, I guess, what would you say, like in between High Point, Winston-Salem, Greensboro area?
So it's in the center between Winston-Salem, Thomasville, High Point, and the Lexington area.
So it's a good location right off the Highway 109. And. And the town of Wahlberg. And Hope City Church stands up as a beacon of light in this area. We are actually in Pastor Scott's office right down the hall is an amazing coffee shop called Given Coffee Shop, which I love coming to.
It's just a big give back. People can't afford a latte, they take care of you. Then, some guy may walk in and pay $100 for a latte because he wants to pay it forward, right? That's right. And then all of our net profits go to another non-profit that is on 501c3.
It's called Hopefuls Incorporated, and it is weeknight meals for children in the elementary age. Currently, or next school year, we'll be serving at 13 elementary schools, four nights a week, about 50 kids per school.
So it's a lot of meals, and it takes lots of hands and lots of people out delivering to make it happen. But the Lord's good, and He's showing us the right path. Scott's been on our show, Truth Talk Live, to talk about Hopefuls, to talk about Hope City Church and what you guys are doing. I mean, the hands and feet of Christ feeding kids. I mean, a lot of these kids won't even get a meal, you know, a regular meal during the week, you know, like something of this kind.
Of substance, that's right.
So, the idea is they get free breakfast at the elementary school, they get free lunch, and then they don't have anything to take home with them for dinner. And so, that's where we come in that we were able to provide them the meal for dinner time. And we do that Monday through Thursday with the thoughts that our church, if it's at Wahlberg Elementary, but other churches I know do backpack programs for the weekend. And so, lots of these kids that we serve also receive a backpack for the weekend that they can, you know, have food for the weekend. Yeah, Pastor Scott said, if the food gets in the backpack, it gets in the stomach, right?
Yep. Yeah, the whole catchphrase is book bags to bellies. I love it. And then, you all, so this is just so neat, and this is just such a great testimony. I mean, this is a whole show in of itself.
We're going to get into your story, which ties into all this because you're still here, you're still doing it, but some would say you should be in heaven after what you experienced for that fire. But Charles Just remarkable how y'all now have not only a coffee shop with good sweets and great coffees and lattes and everything, but you also have a food truck. And that's kind of how. The story begins with what happened with you just last year, but talk about that food truck and kind of how that, the genesis of that. Yeah, so it actually is no longer operable.
We were given that about four years ago, and it ran, or excuse me, about five years ago, and it ran as a food truck for a while. And when we first got it, it was like the Tom's model: buy one, get one. And so we would make food and we go into areas and we would, you know, provide a meal for people who couldn't necessarily afford it. And then other times we would go to like a business and they would buy everybody's food. And we ran it that way for a while.
And then about three years ago, we went all in on coffee. And so that big food truck became a coffee truck. And that's actually the truck that Actually, it exploded back in August that myself and three of my employees were on.
So it was a warm August morning. You get the call for the big, you know, Wake Force. I think all the kids are coming back to school over there. Coliseum Drive, Deacon Boulevard, and you take it like he would. And it's a great outreach.
You're trying to be a witness with this truck, a light. You know, that they're not going to say, come to church in our parking lot to welcome our students coming in, but come do coffee. But it's a church providing a truck, providing the gospel. And there you were. Kind of take us through what happened and what We'll kind of clip it and go in if we need to go in the next segment on this, Charles.
But so you were there, your team was there, you were ready to go. Another day of ministry, another day in this given Coffee truck. And What happened? Yeah, so that morning it was a beautiful August morning. We got here super early at the church to start preparing.
Honestly, I probably got here at like 4:30 in the morning because we probably had 30 gallons of milk on the truck and these huge ice coolers. And we were just preparing for this huge day of probably serving well over a thousand people in the LJVM Coliseum for at the LJVM Coliseum to provide a coffee and a treat and whatnot to the parents of Wake Forest students who were coming back to school. And so we were preparing, we drove there, we got set up. It was, you know, kind of a brisk morning to be August, and we were just ready to rock and roll. And the next thing we know, we started hearing this sound and Uh it As I tried to explain, as like a sound that nobody can explain, because it literally started off as a hum, and then it just continued to get louder and louder until it hit an ear-piercing level, and then.
The next thing we know, there's a huge explosion. We go to the ground. Uh, all of us end up with our clothes on fire, and the crazy thing is, nothing else but a one-dollar bill caught on fire, except for us. And the windshield blew out, the doors blew off the hinges, and the truck actually, the metal on the side where the serving windows were, it's bulged, it bulged out almost like into a triangle. Wow.
Now, for those of us who live in Winston-Salem, and which is, you know, the world headquarters of the Truth Network is there, and we're not far from that. In fact, some of our team may have heard that explosion because this, you know, but we're hearing news feeds, social media posts. other radio reports that, Hey, there's been a food truck explosion at student orientation over you know at the Coliseum. And we had no idea it was y'all. Right.
And so, I guess, what was going through your mind when that explosion hit? And what was. How crazy and clamorous was it like outside? Like, what were students and other people around even? thanking or responding.
To this 911 situation.
So luckily, it occurred early enough where we did not have any patrons ready to be served yet. There was one family that had showed up and they had gone back to their car because the people that were running the event said, hey, we'll start at like 8 o'clock. And this was around 7:15 when they told them that. And we. All of a sudden, you know, once we heard, once this occurred, the explosion happened, luckily that there was nobody around, so nobody was injured by it except for the four of us.
And we were so lucky, like in hindsight, Stu, we could literally see God's fingerprints all over this whole situation. Because the Winston Salem bomb squad was on the other side of the Coliseum doing some sort of training. They were so close to us that they got called by their captain asking, Hey, like, what did you blow up? And they were like, Oh, it wasn't us. Like, we're just that close to something that did blow up.
And so, they were there within moments. Uh, four ambulances were really close by as well, and they were able to get to us within moments, and just people began to rally around. It was just a chaotic scene, but also in hindsight, we could see how Jesus was in there on the truck with us. Because we were told if We had the windows closed, like there would be a whole different scenario of us being alive today. Wow.
Well, Paul said at the end of Galatians, he said, Don't anyone trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. You have marks all over your body. You can't go out with your family out and say, Hey, what happened to that guy? What's wrong with that guy?
We're going to talk about that and how This story, you could have been, it could have been a funeral later that week, and it could have been the end, and you would have been in heaven, which thank the Lord for that. What God has done in and through you, both physically and spiritually, and with your family. As a result of all this, Charles, when we come back, so don't anyone go away. We'll be right back on this special broadcast podcast with Charles Myers. Hope City Church, the food truck explosion, and how God has used this To shine his grace in so many ways.
Happy 4th of July weekend. I'm Stu Eberson, thanking you for listening, thanking all of our great affiliates, and congratulations, America, on 250 years. Want to say, first of all, thank you to Vintastic.com, promo code TRUTH, a healthy new beverage that is reminding us to take care of our bodies. They're the temple of the Holy Spirit. Over 300 parts per million of antioxidant polyphenols in every bottle.
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For listening to Truth Talk and Truth Talk Live. What was supposed to be a wonderful early fall, late summer morning of welcoming college students back, from a cof very popular coffee truck Turn into an explosion that nearly took the lives of four people. God has been gracious. Charles Myers is here speaking for that group. I've heard you speak.
To college basketball teams, I heard you share with the High Point University Men's Basketball, and there you could have heard a pin drop. Those guys were locked in. I was in the room with you, I was praying for you as you spoke, Charles. Powerful testimony. I've heard you speak, you've speaking to the hometown men's group, you know, at Richard Children's Racing, you've spoken all over the places in churches.
We're here in the office of Pastor Scott. Right outside the door is this amazing given coffee shop, and we're in the kind of the belly of. The church that's known as Hope City Church provides a lot of hope, providing a lot of food for kids that can't get it in all these public schools around here. It's really a blessing. But you were in a food truck.
That this was a coffee truck designed to be ministry and to, in this case, take care of a thousand kids coming back to school at Wake Forest, right up the road here in Winston-Salem. Then everything changed. When your truck exploded, windows blew out, doors blew off their hinges. Wow.
Bombs quad was cl I mean, just you know, when we left our hero, the bomb squad was just across the parking lot. Thank the Lord. What happened after that? Charles, tell us a little bit about How they put you back together, I mean, like your skin was really melting. Yeah, so when I got out of the coffee truck, and I mean, this is going to be a little graphic, but I could literally see the skin dripping off my hands, like if it was raining, as well as on my legs.
I mean, it was just like there was skin dripping around me. And I was just screaming. I was told by a bystander that I was screaming in agony, but also I was calling on the name of the Lord through my screams, just saying, you know, God, help us, God, help us, Jesus. Over and over again, so much that I ended up actually damaging my vocal cord that has healed itself over the last six months or so. But anyways, I went, ambulance got there.
They rushed us to the, you know, another God moment. The Burn Center here at Wake Forest, or Atrium Health is the third, I believe, the third best in the nation. And just so happens that we were, you know, five minutes away from there, and they rushed us there, they got us back, uh, they obviously immediately uh try to get us manage our pain uh and Then they start the process of trying to repair. I actually had 47% of my body burned. With second and third degree burns from my, it started around my ankles and it goes all the way up to my face.
And it's crazy where some of my clothes were, wasn't burned. My wrist, I had an Apple watch on my wrist, wasn't burned at all. And just it's just amazing, you know, the different places where I am was burned. But they, so I get to the hospital and they try to manage my pain. And the ambulance is a pretty cool story.
I tried to get them to let me call my wife. I was like, I need to call my wife. She needs to hear my voice. She doesn't need to hear a cop's voice or anybody else's. She needs to hear mine.
And that I can let her know, hey. I'm hurt, but I'm gonna make it home, babe. And the lady in the back of the ambulance wouldn't let me use her phone.
So I had the wherewithal after all the burn that I still had my Apple Watch on, and it looked like it was working. And I was able to call her for my watch from the ambulance in agony and let her know that I was going to make it home to her. And so she met me at the hospital. That was a great reunion. But then the process started.
The next 40 days, I was at the hospital here in Winston-Salem and I. I just started literally from the very beginning, almost like a baby, all over again. I couldn't walk, I couldn't use the bathroom by myself. All those things, and in the process, that also they were, they had removed, you know, I had 47% of my body burned, so they had to remove another 47% to cover that.
So they did skin grafting on, you know, the other parts of my body.
So literally, from the backs of my legs all the way up to my through my back, they pulled that skin off and were able to overlay the parts where I was burned. And so that actually pain was pretty ag, uh, caused a lot of agony as well because it was open, open wounds. But John O'Leary, I don't know if you know who that is or not, but he's he was a little boy. They I think they did a movie on him on fire or something back in this fall of last year. And he has a quote that really resonates with me.
And he was talking to his son. His son was touching his body and looking at the scars, and he said. Um something to the nature of the scars remained because the wounds had healed. And I feel like that quote can be resonated with so many people. The scars remain because the wounds that heal.
And that's, you know, sometimes how our life is as believers. Like, we have wounds and we have scarring, and that scarring covers up those wounds. Wow.
You've got a precious wife who stood with you, you've got kids. It's tough when you can't really hold your kids. It's tough when you can't do the normal stuff. Looking back at these. I mean, we're almost at the one-year anniversary as of this sitting.
I'm sitting with you here. What has God done in these last months, you know, since nearly a year ago, this whole thing happened? Like, what has God done in your life and through your life? I'll just say, and then I'll let you answer, of course. That I don't see a guy who's bitter.
Blaming God. upset, mad at the world. I mean, every time I see you, you pick me up. You're encouraging me. You're praying for me.
You're coming on our radio shows. You're speaking to people, to groups, all ages, young people. You're loving your family. You're loving your kids. And I just want to publicly thank you for that, for being a testimony.
Because sometimes I think About how bad my problems are, and I don't realize: hey, there's people going through. Weirdly enough, there's people going through worse stuff than you've been through. And I can hardly stomach hearing what you went through, even though I've heard it even some before. But what's God done? How have you seen his grace?
Share a little bit about that with our listeners, especially folks that are really going, feel like they're going through the fire right now. Yeah.
So, in the hospital, I had lots of time to be in the quiet, secret place with the Lord, just a place where there was no distractions. I couldn't use my phone because I couldn't see, couldn't use my phone because I couldn't use my hands, didn't work. And so, I had lots of time to just be alone with the Lord. And there's parts of me now that desire and wish I could go back to that place because the world will tell you you need to be moving and moving, doing all these things, and you need to be on social media, you need to do all this. But really, some of the best times I've ever had with the Lord were in that hospital room.
And I like literally put a stake in the ground and I told God. Listen. I am Sad about this. I am disappointed in this, but I'm not going to be angry about this. Why why?
What good is it going to do me? What good is it going to do be for anyone around me? If I am angry at you because you didn't stop this event, I know that you could have stopped it. I know without a shadow of a doubt that you're still. Omnipresent, you are still sitting on the throne seat.
But I'm not going to be bitter about it. I'm not going to be angry about it because it's not going to do me or anyone any good. And I And I said, for the rest of my life. Even though I'm not, I don't see myself as a public speaker. I don't even find myself eloquent.
I even see myself kind of like Moses that said I'm not well with speech when he was asked to go and tell Pharaoh to let his people go. And I But I will, for the rest of my life, will honor you and share the story about your goodness. And I don't care if it's to five people or a hundred thousand people. I will stand on that stage or I will sit in the chair or in a circle and share of your goodness through this terrible tragedy.
Well, what a word. And the other folks, did they survive the fire? Are they? Give us a quick, just. A few seconds on them.
Yeah, so there was three, there's two females and another male with me on the truck. Two, one of the male, the male that was on the truck with me, he has come on part-time with Hope City. He is very smart musically.
So he is doing things with our audio, our broadcast audio that when we stream our services live. He also does some training with musicians because he's. A great keyboard player, and he can play bass and can play electric, so he's able to do some trainings. And just honestly, just makes Hope City better through that. And then another lady, she was actually my co-manager.
Her name's Crystal, and she has taken on a volunteer role here at the church where she tries to recruit and love on our volunteers. Uh, which is something we've never had before. Uh, each individual like department kind of have their responsibility, but she's kind of taken on like an over uh sight of all the volunteers. And then Rochelle, she was our youngest, and honestly, uh, I've said this some a hundred times almost so I'm blue in the face, but she was our youngest, she was not married yet, or she's not married yet, uh, in a long-term relationship, and she doesn't have children. Uh, but she's the one that makes me the most sad that was on the truck because she hasn't had the experiences the other three of us with being married, having children, that kind of thing.
Uh and so she um is alive and well and doing um some dog sitting and home sitting. She has not returned back to employment yet. But the goal is to get her back soon. That's great.
Well, we're going to keep praying for you and for them as they heal up and as God uses your story. As part of his story, To touch a lot of people like you're doing. I thank you for coming on. Is there one Bible verse that comes to mind or that maybe? Has been tender to you over this season of time.
What's a verse that you could maybe share as we get out of here, Charles Myers? Here we are at Hope City Church at the Given Coffee Shop. Sharing about the fire truck explosion. Go back and listen to this whole make it a podcast to share with folks to bless people with your story. Thanks for being a blessing, man.
But what's a verse that God is. has uh put on your heart through this whole season, would you say? And so there's a quick story in Exodus. And in Exodus, the The Israelites are in going through the wilderness, and they come up against a group of people, the Amelites, and they need to prevail against them. And the only way they can prevail against them is by Moses holding his arms up.
Well, when you hold your arms up for a long period of time, they get they grow tired and weary. And so he had Aaron and her on each side of him hold his arms up. And when they were able to hold his arms up, they prevailed. And I will tell anyone when you're going through the fire. You've got to have people in your to have your back, to hold your arms up.
And I've seen that through my community. Seeing that through the small group that I lead, they literally were holding my arms up when I could not do on my own. They came alongside me and held my arms up for me. Wow, and I think of that great story in the book of Daniel. I think it's chapter, maybe chapter three or four, where the three young lads were thrown in the fire.
But was there a fourth man in that fire? There was a fourth man in the fire, and in my situation, there was a fifth man. Amen. Bless you, brother. Thanks for being on with us.
What a testimony. We love you, man, and we're going to keep praying. Thank you, Stu. Have a good day. True to the I
