We Love Great Stories
When I first started volunteering for Nehemiah’s weekly Bread on Bridge Community Meal, I mostly stayed in the kitchen doing the food prep and clean-up. It took me awhile to understand that the BEST part of each week’s time is interacting with our visitors, and getting to know them. This opened my heart and gave me a new understanding of the words “community” and “family”. In this small way, I feel that I am doing something that is both meaningful, and pleasing to God. “The hands of the Almighty are so often found at the ends of our arms”.
-Jan Petrik
My New Family
About one year after my wife and I began to help with Bread on Bridge (the weekly Tuesday afternoon community meal at Nehemiah Mission), it was becoming clear that our relationship to the work and to the people was changing. Yet, I was not entirely sure how. One Tuesday, after all the prep had been completed and most of the guests had been served, I was relaxing, facing the community area as I leaned with my back to a counter. It was clear that the folks were enjoying their meal and fellowship. Unexpectedly, I ‘felt’ something wash over me, as if from head to toe. At first it was not clear what this sensation was about. Then, a moment into it, I realized that I had just been informed, “This is your family.” My heart was strangely warmed. Unintentionally, and somewhat unexpectedly, my time in this service to a new, dynamic, and diverse community had become a ministry of service and friendship that had grown my sense of ‘family’ to new dimensions. If you would like to discover your new ‘family,’ perhaps giving your time and your heart to a ministry of caring for others might just lead you there.
-Br. Harry Finkbone, OSL, OblSB
About 11 months ago my wife and I were talking. She shared that she had learned that a place called Nehemiah Mission needed to have a meal cooked for the community. I like to cook and have cooked for our church, North Olmsted United Methodist, for years. We asked for volunteers to help and soon had a team. We showed up that first Tuesday in November and got to work. We found a kitchen in need of refurbishing, but there was an oven and stove that functioned and a meal was prepared . Community members arrived and we served them. We were greeted by warm, friendly and appreciative persons. Smiles and gracious “Thank you’s” were abundant. As John Wesley said, “our hearts were strangely warmed!” We knew that we were called by God to share in this ministry. Eleven months later we now greet, not community members, but friends. Thanks be to God.
-Joel Chermonte
