It’s nice to offer praise and thanksgiving to God for blessings daily and for food. However, there are hungry and hurting people approaching shelters and soup kitchens in record numbers. In response, the members at Cleveland Fellowship Church in Cleveland, Tenn., have been providing approximately 75 to 100 meals each month to help meet the needs of struggling families who look forward to nutritious meals.
To launch this ministry, Cleveland Fellowship—with a membership of only slightly over 50 individuals — had to find a kitchen with a dining area, funds to buy food and supplies, and volunteers for the task, as well as a way to locate the people in need. God provided an incredible resource in Albian Johnson, who, with her faithful team from another Christian church, serves two meals a month at the local Salvation Army office. She generously coached Cleveland Fellowship Church volunteers, teaching how to organize and serve guests as they serve the second Saturday of each month.
Cleveland Fellowship volunteers quickly came to love the guests attending their “new mission.” As operating costs grew, the church members trusted in the Lord to help them discover additional funding. In answer to their prayers, Bowman Hills School in Cleveland held a Turkey Trot fundraiser that got the whole school involved. The students set a goal for the food drive of raising $5 a person to feed 100 people for a total of $500, but as God’s Spirit was working, their sponsors shared $3,000! Those funds were donated to Cleveland Fellowship’s “Feeding the Hungry” mission, and Bowman Hills students continue to help by serving meals on designated Sabbaths. The dining room is closed due to COVID-19, so meals are served in to-go bags.
Many guests who attend these Cleveland Fellowship lunches may not yet realize it, but their souls need food just as much as their body. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him Who sent Me, and to finish His work,” John 4:35 NKJV. The members at Cleveland Fellowship follow His example by putting a Signs of the Times tract in each meal bag, then praying that God will lead their guests to find rest for their souls by feeding on Jesus’ words for their hungry hearts.
Georgia–Cumberland | December 2020
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