After the Earthquake, a little church of 60 members in the heart of Aranui, which is the poorest socio-economic and by far worst hit area of Christchurch, did some baking and popped a little 'stall' out offering free food.
The people there had no power or water or sewage.
It proved very popular as you can imagine, but they had far, far too little for what was needed by those desperate, poor people.
A few days into it, a large truck pulled up with a load of donated food, saying they did not know what to do with it, so were thrilled to find a place to deposit it.
Within a day, they had to move the operation to a Primary School hall.
Every day, as their reputation grew, more and more trucks pulled up with more and more food. It came from all over NZ.
The power and water came on. Fisher and Paykel donated some brand new washing machines, and 4 huge latest model fridge/freezers.
A free laundry service was set up.
Within days it was so popular they had 50 volunteers daily running it, and thousands of people queued up daily.
It opened from 10am till 6pm.
Lois was involved from a neighbours invitation for 5 days straight (her James and Daniel helped on a couple of days too) and then she invited me to help too.
Kent, Guy, Heath and I went, and we worked there also.
It was almost the hardest, yet most rewarding work I have ever done in my entire life.
Guy said he secretly hadn't wanted to go, but once into it, wouldn't have missed it for anything.
We all rolled up our sleeves, along with the many others and what a privilege to be able to serve and be part of such a team.
It even made TV twice, as it was the largest food bank in Chch, and so many were helped in desperate times.
Here are some of the photos of our time there.
I will start with a little movie to give you the general picture of how it worked:
Kent with cheese!
Kent with pastor Steve, who pastors the church with his father.
Bringing in more supplies
The kitchen - where we cut up and repackaged baking which came in, and also provided morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea for all the workers who volunteered.
George. Gorgeous:)
Rebecca came and helped with her son Griff
There's our lads all working hard!
The fruit and vege table. Being sorted.
I was standing here on the stage looking down.
Guy and Kent
2 comments:
What a wonderful inspiring story! Amazing what people can do when they pull together. Your photo's are incredible, it is so interesting to see the power and weird happens when the earth rumbles, thank your for sharing and stopping by
Carol
Wow it is so awesome to see how the Lord pours out Blessings when we step out in faith to help others.This is such an inspiring story. I am so glad that I found your blog!
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