The Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Wenang District of Manado, Indonesia, has found the right ingredients to start a new and exciting ministry: Drop and Grab. The ingredients are location, circumstance, and the church members. This is how it works: The Wenang Church is located near a public transportation hub where people come and go. The pandemic caused people to lose their jobs and even the ability to provide for themselves a decent meal every day. The church members of Wenang proposed to reach out to this community by providing free lunch packs every Friday. They would visit the church to “drop” food items they wanted to share, and the church would make these food items available for “grabs” to the public.
About 70 to 80 individuals, mostly public transportation drivers, passengers, and store owners, flock to the church every Friday to receive their free meals. The number is expected to grow as word about the free meals is passed around.
“The people started to acknowledge our church in the neighborhood. Some of the people who are not aware of the existence of the church became curious and interested,” said Peter Tappy, leader of the Wenang Church. “The church is not just a building but the people inside doing something good and driven by compassion towards their neighbors.”
The idea of Drop and Grab is not only to provide food but also extend a ray of sunshine to everyone who comes to receive a free meal. The objective is to share happiness and positivity with the community in every pack they receive.
“It is my prayer to always encourage our church members to do something. It’s not enough for us to just attend church. We need to do something,” said Alvianus Saleppang, Wenang Church pastor. “We need to reach out to the community [members] who are needy and suffering.… We cannot feed everyone in Manado City, but at least we can feed a few people on that day and give them a little taste of happiness in this sinful world.”
This article was originally published on the Southern Asia-Pacific Division’s news site