January 2010 Blog
‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25 v 45
Time to reflect
Friday 1st January 2010
What a 2 years it’s been, from a church cupboard, to offices and storerooms and a van. God is good, so very good. We’ve learnt that as long as we live, we will never ever be able to understand or keep up with Gods plans for this, his ministry. We just have to hold on to his shirt tails and enjoy the ride. Our Lord opens doors that we cannot see, arranges appointments we never had and gives us opportunities to serve we never knew existed.
We have met and served so many people and we thank God for that so much. Everyone is his and his gift to us is to serve them. Numbers mean nothing in this ministry, we know that, but obedience and desire to go that extra bit and be nameless and faceless in the Kingdom is everything. We’ve cried with what we’ve seen and praised God for the opportunity to serve. We’ve met so many beautiful people who have been so unfortunate, but are so precious to our God, even the ones who don’t think so and don’t care.
Kings Baptist Church, our home church, has provided us with a small budget which, praise God, we have never had to use. God, in his grace and mercy has provided us an endless amount of food, furniture and clothing and even 2 canoes! (We sold the canoes and feed people with the proceeds.)
I’ve spent time trying to tell God of my plans for this project. Why didn’t he listen, they were good plans.
A while back he showed me something in a picture. I was in a small corridor with two doors. I was pushing one after the other and they would open just a little and then close tight. I was pushing and pushing and then I stopped. It was quiet and I heard the sound of God’s breath about me. Slowly a door appeared out of a wall, which was just plain wallpaper and opened wide. God was showing me he had his plans and didn’t need me!
We know that wherever God takes this ministry, as long as we are prepared to be led and not lead, pray at all times and always be prepared not to judge, we will be blessed, but most importantly we will, through God, bless others.
How we started
About January 2008 (how time flies!), I can’t remember how or why, but Lindsay and I were looking after this small cupboard in our church hall. In fact, I think Lindsay was the main co-ordinator. It contained a few items of food and such like, which we would give to our membership when they were needed. This was called the Fathers Storehouse.
It was about this time, that I wanted us to be more involved so I approached my pastor and said I would be willing to work for the church one day a week, voluntarily on Fridays, to work for the Fathers Storehouse. Next came the church’s commitment to provide two boxes of groceries a week and I was the person who would deliver them. Then came the decision on who would receive them, I was prepared to give to anyone, but it wasn’t my food, it was Gods.
I was informed on my first Friday that I would be spending much of my time networking. This filled me with dread and the boring buzzer soon began to sound. I don’t do networking, I didn’t, if I’m honest know what it meant. I thought it was ‘suit speak’, not for me, but the obedient servant I was, I networked. (Great!) Funnily enough, it worked. Over the next month I made great contacts with Children’s Agencies, Tennant Support Agencies, Schools, Health Visitors, and Doctors etc.
It took a while to build up trust because the contacts quite rightly were cautious of a church getting involved. (So would I be if they knew half the people I do!) The last thing Social Workers, Health Visitors etc need at this time, as they are under so much pressure, are a bunch of zealots telling all their clients they need to be cleansed in the blood of Jesus (even though they do).
I’ve felt from the start that it’s not good enough to talk and just email. It’s so important to go and meet these agencies and let them look you in the eye and see our passion and put a face to the voice. Also I want to see their faces as this builds up trust on both sides. This, through Gods doing, has been so good for the ministry and for us, as I feel that now we are all on the same side - working for the good of all and any who have a need.
Also we now have a real friendship with our Social Workers, Children’s Workers, Doctors etc and a great deal of trust. Our faith is our motivation, but to me a very practical way is to let people experience the love of Jesus, not just hear about it at meetings. We are very clear about our Christian values and beliefs, but also I believe, as Scripture tells us, we must look after the widows and orphans. This means today the lowest of the low, the ones with nothing, be it physical or spiritual, whatever circumstances, colour or faith.
I believe Jesus loves the non Christian as much as he loves me, it’s just they don’t love him (not yet anyway). It’s our job to let them see that someone cares. When we leave them with food, clothes etc, we also leave the presence and fragrance of Jesus with them and that fragrance will do the rest.
Through just giving, not preaching, I believe God gives us the opportunities he wants us to have. We never force our faith on anyone and up to now people have asked us about our motivation much more than we have offered to tell them.
Our ministry has not all been plain sailing, actually it has been a quite steep learning curve for all the team. We thought we had premises in Letchworth, but that fell through and that hurt. We have had a few disagreements in the team over silly things, but we have come through this stronger and all who are part of the ministry are very caring, loving and just want to serve.
Time to fast forward to today – 1st Jan 2010.
We have been given three large offices/storerooms for free in Biggleswade - a large amount of the need is local to Biggleswade (God knew this). Since January 08, we have given, through Gods provision, nearly 500 food hampers. At least 10 3-peice suites, 10 beds, loads of clothes (all sizes), cots, buggies, televisions, washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves, bedding, bikes, tables and chairs and loads of other things. They were all given free and obtained free. God is good. As I said we have a limited budget. Who needs one?! Our fellowship and friends (and that’s you), have been so generous in all areas and people outside the church have also been so kind.
We decided to do 50 Christmas hampers this year. We do get various gifts of money throughout the year and we thought we might have between £400-500 in our fund that we could use to purchase food. When we checked, we had about £1,500 (a bit of a shock) and we decided to spend what we needed to achieve 50 hampers, approx £800-900 we felt would cover it. Anyway, we did 49 hampers on the day. Would the 50th maybe feed an odd ego (mine)! Thank you Lord. Maybe doing 50 was a man thing and 49 a God thing. We also had the joy of giving a nearly new bike to a man in Hitchin and a cooker to a lady in Sandy along with the 49 hampers.
We had 5 food hampers for Kings Community Church in Letchworth and Christine Wheatley, the pastors wife, decided that our 50th food parcel was so big, that it was split into three single ones. All greatly needed and yet that makes 51. Isn’t God good (I didn’t find out about it till 2 days later, just enough time for my ego to come to terms with the 49). The parcels were received in Letchworth with some tears of joy and bewilderment. Praise God always.
Oh, guess how much money we have left in our fund.... £1,500. (I never saw that one coming!)
I’ve had the great privilege to go and preach in other churches about being involved and just sharing about the churches social responsibilities locally. This has reaped huge rewards in many ways.
We are now called ‘The Need Project’. The name came from a Children’s Social Worker, as I was telling her that we saw a great need for help and couldn’t think of a name ourselves. (Pretty obvious really.) We have a lot of churches in our area prepared to help, and pray that more will join us. They, on behalf of The Need Project, deliver our food etc and collect also for us in their own local area.
These include:
| Biggleswade New Life Church | King's Community Church, Letchworth |
| Cotton End Baptist | Maulden Baptist |
| Cranfield Baptist | St Francis Catholic Church, Shefford |
| Flitwick Baptist | Sandy Baptist |
| King's Baptist Church, Stotfold | Shefford Baptist |
Our food hampers have been as far afield as Dunstable, Bedford, Harrold, Letchworth and Stevenage. Praise God for his kingdom.
We always wanted and continue to want to be nameless and faceless in kingdom things. This is the project to be involved in to achieve that. I will never meet all the people who received from us, and they will never know me, but they will know that there is someone who cares - Jesus, and they will know that through our faith and trust in him.
Sandy Baptist Church has been a great help to us and hopefully we have helped them reach out in their local area. We have used the old church building at Sandy to store the clothing and furniture that we have been given. We will be emptying the church of all our stuff soon and are so grateful to have had use of the space. We intend to fill our shelves with food and pre-packed parcels soon. We also have an amazing amount of clothes to sort and give away and have plans for open days for Kings Community Church in Letchworth, Biggleswade Baptist Church and in Shortstown, Bedford.
It’s still 1st January, but a lot later than when I started this letter. Although being nameless and faceless is important, I want to thank so many people and that means anyone who has helped physically, spiritually and financially with the project. This is not about any one person, it’s a kingdom thing. If you have only given a tin of beans, a passing prayer or given £5 or £1,000, you are part of a ministry that has touched, through our Lord Jesus’ provision, at least 800 needy situations, and some of them were very desperate. (But that’s a story for another day.)
This ramble is the start of a regular part in our ministries new way of communicating with anyone who is interested. I will try to keep everyone informed about what we get up to and all the incidents and stories along the way, so that this will bless you and encourage you in your prayers for us and also your giving of provisions.
I will, in future weeks, remember and tell many of the amazing ‘God-instances’ and ‘miracles’ that have happened. Not for any reason except to give the Glory to God.
If you feel the Lord speaking to you in any way regarding The Project or have any desire to know or help more, please call Dawn Addams or myself or write it down and pass it on to us. We don’t know where God is leading us, but up to now it’s been blessings by the shed load.
I have no doubt that 2010 will be a year of more need and opportunities to serve our Lord. Thank you for your prayers.
Gordon
Dawn
