Blessings Abound: Bread of Life Mission Meal

The First Presbyterian Church of Bordentown, NJ has always had a passion for mission in our local and surrounding communities as a well as world wide. A couple of years ago we learned about homeless families in the Mercer County area that were relocated to Bordentown motels when the motels where they lived were closed. They are eligible for the services available in Mercer County; however, they now live far away from those resources with little to no transportation available. We decided to take our passion for mission and turn it into “mission in action”. That has become our theme as we organized a team of volunteers to do mission work for the church.

We join with other local churches in a program called “Bordentown Area Caregivers” in an effort to provide meals for these individuals and families. One church providing one meal per month doesn’t seem like enough but when we combine efforts like this, there are meals provided almost every weekend. Motel residents have come to know that even when their resources have run out, there are Christians of all denominations preparing meals to help them. Many are transient; however, we see some of the same residents each month because they have disabilities and/or illnesses that require them to remain.

Blessings abound as we deliver meal after meal and we receive thanks. The gift that we get as a result of this combined Christian effort is much more than we give. When a resident says “that’s really tasty…may I have another” or some have said “this is the first hot meal we’ve had in days and my children are so hungry” it makes it worth all the hard work and planning it takes to successfully prepare, pack and deliver the meals.

Each month we have more and more volunteers from our congregation to help including the youth of our church. If we have leftovers (which are very uncommon) we package and freeze them to distribute to transient individuals or families that come to our church asking for assistance. It’s been a learning process for us and it never ceases to amaze me how we always seen to have “just enough”, nothing is wasted. I feel the power of the Holy Spirit working in our church and in our mission work and pray that we continue to have the resources to be Disciples of Christ.

To see a slideshow of Bordentown's Bread of Life Mission Meal.

Karen Chamberlin
Mission Team Leader
First Presbyterian Church of Bordentown, NJ