Story 11 - Embracing Adventure

Open Door Baptist Church - Peterborough

Carol Knight - July 2020

In April 2018 Open Door Baptist Church in Peterborough acquired a Community Fridge.
A fridge - that's not exciting you say!
But the unplanned adventure started that day has turned our church upside down.

Based in Millfield, a very multicultural area of the city, with many different social needs, our community fridge seeks to gather waste food and redistribute it to those in need.

For many years we have sought to be a local church for local people but as a small fellowship we were already feeling overstretched. Nevertheless we took a risk and little did we know that a year later over 125 people would be coming to the Fridge each week.
Many of these are families, so many more are filling their tummies on food which would have gone into landfill.
Our team of volunteers is also diverse with several coming from the free Creative English lessons we run, others are asylum seekers, homeless and refugees. We work together as one team, describing ourselves as a ‘Fridge family’ with a purpose to generously bless our neighbourhood.
Few of these volunteers are church partners but they give generously of their time in this Holy Spirit adventure.
Some people have started to come on a Sunday and several have been baptised.
Every Friday we produce a free meal for about 50 homeless, lonely and disadvantaged people in which our culturally diverse cuisine is showcased; Italian one week, Angolan the next and occasionally a roast chicken dinner - all from waste food!

My role as a Minister has also changed.
No longer do I play any role on a Sunday (my co-minister and husband does that) because during the week I am listening to the stories of our visitors and praying with them.
I am discipling the volunteers, speaking the word of God into them as we serve together, modelling what it is to be a Christian.
I am being a chaplain at the many retailers we visit to collect food, and working with other businesses who have been inspired to join in with this adventure - feeding the hungry and addressing injustice.

As a church we are also doing our part in God's mission to take care of our environment.
Last week we redistributed over 700kg of food and there is still so much more we could access.
Our children's club is now oversubscribed as parents now know us and we have started a second English class with people we have met through the Community Fridge.

Yet we nearly missed this Holy Spirit opportunity.
What an incredible blessing we would have missed out on!

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