Heeding the CALL

CELINA - Organizers say CALL Ministries is living proof that good things happen when people keep faith and let God lead the way.

The organization, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, has witnessed a few moments of blind faith with God always leading it in the best direction.

Executive director Homer Burnett and his wife, Carol, visited CALL in 2018 looking to volunteer. Then-director the Rev. Tim Clutter had announced his retirement a few months prior and was beginning to fear he wouldn't find a suitable replacement. When Burnett arrived, Clutter said inspiration struck.

He asked if Burnett would be interested in being director, but Burnett didn't leap at the idea at first. A few weeks later, however, Burnett returned.

"'You know, Tim, God's been working on me,'" Clutter said Burnett had told him. "'I think I'm supposed to apply, and I'm supposed to be here.'"

"Kind of one of those things sent by God, I think," Burnett added.

This full faith in God and serving Jesus Christ has steered the organization from the beginning. This sometimes required leaps of faith, but God always delivered, Clutter said.

The Rev. Gary King and Brian Grimm first opened Community Action Life Line in 1990 as a food pantry and the Rev. Kenny Baker soon took on the role of director. Baker, who had struggled with alcoholism, had turned over his life to serving God and others in 1973 after suffering a massive heart attack, he said in a 2002 interview.

"That heart attack happened five days before my 32nd birthday," he said in the interview. "Lying in the hospital bed, I gave my life to the Lord and I haven't drank or smoked since."

He said he had refused to go to the local pantry when his family was in need, forcing his wife to seek handouts. This memory later fueled his drive to serve at CALL, carrying food baskets for others. Baker, who lives in a nursing facility, carried CALL until 2009, when his health began to fail.

Clutter had become good friends with Baker through their ministerial work, and Baker had asked Clutter to tour the facility and consider taking over his role. In 2009 the board elected Clutter as the new executive director at Baker's recommendation.

"That's how I got to be there, through Kenny Baker, who really established the foundation of CALL," Clutter said. "He was so well respected and is still well respected in the community. So I had a huge foundation to build upon and God built upon that foundation."

Clutter, who served as director until October 2018, said his proudest moment as director was severing ties with government assistance through the West Ohio Food Bank in December 2011. A stipulation of receiving the food from the government-run bank included not ministering to clients.

"I'm doing volunteers work here, and I'm doing it to glorify Jesus Christ, and we can't do that with the limitations put on us by West Ohio Food Bank," Clutter said he'd told CALL's board members at the time.

Despite many people counseling him to stay with the food bank, Clutter knew God was pulling him the other way. He had told the newspaper at the time that he had hand delivered a 30-day termination notice to the food bank, intending to end the agreement at the end of 2011. The very next day, two food bank employees arrived to collect any food still on the shelves and immediately ended the agreement.

The food bank truck pulled away carrying six pallets of food worth $1,800. Simultaneously, another truck pulled in from a local company wanting to donate six pallets of food worth about $18,000, Clutter said.

"We took that step in faith, and we were rewarded many, many, many times over," he said. "Boy, it just took off as far as the finances and the food pouring in and the support. It was just amazing to watch God work through that decision, and the county of Mercer how the people came around that decision in a huge way. So we had more food than we ever did getting commodities through West Ohio Food Bank."

More volunteers offered their gifts, and soon after, the clothing pantry was opened and then came CALL Cafe, where clients could receive a hot meal every Tuesday evening at the Mercer County Fairgrounds; the backpack program, which provides weekend food for children; and the Work 4 Program, in which clients would earn larger items, such as kitchen appliances and even vehicles, in exchange for volunteer hours.

Clutter said one of his more difficult times was about four years ago when he singlehandedly operated the donated aquaponics system, worth about $25,000. The indoor system grows fresh garden greens in water containing fish. It offers an environment in which the fish and plants benefit each other.

"For roughly the first year I ran that by myself really not knowing what I was doing at all, and then all of a sudden I started to have fish starting to die and the plants weren't growing very well, and I just didn't know what to do," he said.

Divine intervention soon after brought master gardener Charlene Huff and fish and water expert Terry Chapman to CALL's door. The two offered to manage the system.

"The day I was so concerned about, 'OK, how am I going to do this,' God sent these two people who are professional at what they do," Clutter said. "They've done so many improvements to that system, and they're getting more greens off of that than we ever dreamed it would do. They've just done an awesome job."

Burnett also praised Huff and Chapman.

"One area where we've had tremendous improvements is in our aquaponics section," he said. "Our two managers there … have really worked tirelessly to improve the production in that area so they've probably tripled, if not quadrupled the output of the aquaponics."

Huff said she receives so much more back as a volunteer than she could ever give.

"I thoroughly enjoy the work that I do at CALL, but it's the volunteers as well as the clients who have honored and humbled me by sharing their life stories with me," she said. "When I have what I term a 'melancholy day,' there's always someone to lift me up, help me laugh and always offers prayers."

Chapman said he enjoys his time with CALL because of the "great," like-minded people who work with him and because it gives him the opportunity to give back.

Burnett and Clutter praised all the volunteers who selflessly give of their talents to make CALL what it is. Clutter also honored CALL's board members.

"I've sat on a lot of boards in my day. This board, this probably was the most mindful of God's will and attempted to always do God's will in running that organization," he said. "It seemed like every board meeting, God was there directing us and making things happen, and so I enjoyed those board meetings more than any other board meeting I've ever attended."