Over 15,000 Meals Served
10 Feed the hungry, and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon. – Isaiah 58:10 NLT
It’s crazy to think that we have delivered or served over 15,000 meals so far in 2011. That’s a 30% increase over last year at this time. We have seen so much GREATER need this year. We are now delivering 540 well-rounded “Happy Meals” to only 18 weekly motels and 2 homeless camps. That’s fewer places than last year, yet many more meals. We have got to offer people HOPE or we will see an increase in alcohol and drug addiction, an increase in social service needs, an increase in poverty and an increase in crime in our community. We were just a victim of crime recently. One of the JWH vans was stolen and used in several burglary attempts. Fortunately, they were able to apprehend the suspect but not until he damaged the steering column, dash and several other items of the van. If you know someone that might be replacing a 12-15 passenger van at the end of the season, please remind them that we can offer a tax deductible receipt if they would like to make us a good deal or even better, donate it to us.
With the current economic situation, if we don’t come alongside people in our community and offer HOPE we will see a negative impact to tourism if these things happen. It may be 5 years or 10 years before we realize the full effects but it will happen. We’ve got to come together as a community and become the “church” God has called us to be.
5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” 6 He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. 7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!” – John 6:5-7
Help us feed the people of our community and offer HOPE while doing it. We’d love to hear from you. Let us know if you have a heart to serve. How you’re serving or if you want to get involved with us. Give us your suggestions, comments, and feedback.
Email us at [email protected]
THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS, DONORS, & SUPPORTERS!!!
We Need Bicycle Volunteers!
AMY's Blog
I read a letter to the editor of our local newspaper a couple of weeks ago where the writer was sharing her frustration concerning the possibility of low income housing being built in her neighborhood. She currently lived close to a recovery center for alcoholics and drug addicts and was struggling with the thought of more of “those people” moving close to her. At first read, I was sad that she did not view this as an opportunity to reach out to messy, broken and hurting people. As I got honest with myself (I hate when God does that) I realized that she was no different than I had been as an active “church goer” for more than 25 years. Truth be known, I was very uncomfortable with people different than myself and my circle of friends. I would help on an occasional outreach type event but was out of my comfort zone to say the least. As always, God has a great sense of humor and love for us, so strong that he knows what we need before we do. It became obvious that I needed a new heart-one that loves people the way he does. As Bryan and I started to deliver meals to the broken, lost and hurting people who actually live right here in our own neighborhood, my fear and judgmental attitude started to change. I started to see “those people” as just people, lost and far from God. The words that I had read in my bible for so long started to come alive. For the first time I began to really grasp that Jesus came here for the very people that I once shied away from. How will they ever know what they can experience through Jesus if we don’t share it? It’s truly amazing how easy it is to just ask someone how they are doing. The saying that “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is so true. I realize that I am a work in progress but pray that God will continue to move me forward. If you see yourself relating to any of my story, please come and volunteer on a Thursday night. We would love to have you, but more importantly, God will touch you in a way that only he can.
God bless,
Amy
VAULT CONFERENCE
Vault is Verve’s church planting lab where current and future church planters can learn how to start a church for people who don’t like church. There are lots of books and conferences on church planting, but unfortunately they’re not focused on how to start a church for the unconvinced and cynical. So … they’re doing it. They’ll take you into the vault, sharing principles learned over several effective church plants, and give you practical ideas to vault you into the future.
