• Happy birthday to Soul Food
BY LAUREN MARTIN
Birthday parties are a time when friends and family gather in a spirit of celebration and enjoyment of each other’s company. That was the atmosphere earlier this month when community members gathered at Shire Salvos Miranda for the first anniversary of the weekly ‘Soul Food’ faith community.
Soul Food offers community members who access food relief at the centre ‘food for your stomach, hope for your soul, and truth that sets you free!’
It was started because strong friendships were formed between community members who regularly attended the centre in search of hope and relief from food poverty, loneliness, isolation and other hardships.
There was a sense that Shire Salvos Miranda was a space for community members to connect with each other and that they desired to connect at a deeper level with The Salvation Army’s core values.
A year later, most of the same people are still attending (with some new additions!). Many of them consider Soul Food their church. Corps members from Shire Salvos Menai regularly attend and support in terms of offering friendship and practical assistance.
Shire Salvos Miranda Mission Leader, Lieutenant-Colonel David Godkin, said the week before the first birthday event, the community spoke about ‘values’ and wrote down the values they identified in the Soul Food Faith Community. They were: honesty, forgiveness, unconditional love without judgement, never giving up, trusting each other, helping each other, encouragement, respect, equality and belief.
“These values have developed over the past 12 months in our Soul Food faith community, and I believe God has even greater things in store for us. We’ve only just begun,” he said.
At the birthday party, David talked about the meaning of a ‘celebration’ and asked those gathered to identify the good things they could celebrate in their lives. Many people took to the open microphone to share, with contributions like “not having to cook!” generating laughter and some going deeper, with one man sharing how he loves and appreciates everyone at the Soul Food faith community, which is a big part of his life.
One community member who has been attending from the beginning, Jean, was given the honour of cutting the cake, which everyone – especially the children gathered – was excited to eat for dessert!
Please keep the faith community of ‘Soul Food’ at Shire Salvos Miranda in your prayers!
Click on the slideshow below for more photos:
Photo 1: The Shire Salvos Miranda Soul Food faith community offers ‘food for your stomach, hope for your soul, and truth that sets you free!’
Photo 2: Christine, Claire and Scott volunteer at the Soul Food faith community.
Photo 3: Shire Salvos Miranda Mission Leader Lieutenant-Colonel David Godkin speaks at the first birthday celebration of the Soul Food faith community.
