A principal maxim of the Christianity as adopted from Jesus, is that “man shall not live by bread alone.” And it is the acceptance of the saying that has led the organizers of the Down Town Feeding Programme to expand this service to include a drive to encourage people to get to know Christ personally.

Meals are distributed on three days of each week, but on one of these days every month, the feeding programme gives out sack lunches from its regular spot in the busy downtown area. On this occasion, the indigents, most of whom are regular recipients of meals, each receive a sack. In it is a meal and a love message which assures each person that he is loved by God and Adventist friends. The bags also contain contact information, making it possible for contact to be established with the church. While the sack lunches are being distributed, Community Services Director, Pastor Richard James, and other workers from the office use the opportunity to distribute magazines and tracts to passersby. Inserted in each publication, is a slip of paper advertising two television programmes that are sponsored by the Guyana Conference along with contact information. One of the programmes is evangelistic in nature while the other is designed to expose the public to the operations of the church and its popular opinions on current social and health issues.
 

Personal Ministries Director, Pastor Richard James

In this way, the feeding programme provides an opportunity to meet two needs of the less fortunate – the need for physical food and the need to be assured of love from God and their fellow men. It also is an avenue to share a word from the Lord with people caught up in the bustle of life and to direct them to sources of additional information. It is hoped that through these encounters people will be introduced to, or be made further acquainted with the Gospel and Adventism. It is a firm belief that the feeding programme could be a voice of hope in today’s storm of physical and spiritual impoverishment.

Plans are in train to develop and enhance this new thrust of the feeding programme service over time. It is hoped that with God’s help, the venture will be a major tool for both bringing physical relief to hundreds of destitute people and leading men and women to the Spring of Living Water.

  
Conference workers distribute literature to passersby