The blog is now open but preparations have been going on for a while. In essence they began last year during the Gentse Feesten but have been ramping up since this spring.
In addition to serving alongside Flemish believers during the morning coffee distribution and one church's crepe and coffee outreach we are beginning a new ministry this year. It is being called the Intentional Acts of Kindness Cookie Outreach. (Okay someone can come up with something catchy here).
Each year during the 10-day festivals the city of Gent receives 1.3 to 1.5 million visitors. (Current population is 240,000). The vast majority of these visitors are not from the immediate area. However we discovered several groups composed of mostly locals on which to focus. Each day there are around 500 drivers needed to operate the trams and buses in the city. With the night and festival buses there is service 24/7 for the 10 days. Another group of people, that is in essence invisible, is the sanitation workers. Last year they removed 124,000 metric tons of festival trash in 10 days. Finally there are the local police and private site security guards that work hard to keep the atmosphere fun, sane and safe.
Our goal is to give them a small bag of cookies as a "thank you" for their extra effort. Included with the homemade cookies will be a note of thanks from the group/church providing the cookies. We hope this will open the door to conversations about how God changes lives and blesses. We also hope it will help people see Evangelical Christians in a new, positive light.
Our American prayer partners have provided thousands of the gift bags for the cookies. But providing the cookies is a monumental task. If we provide bags of two cookies on three days to the tram/bus drivers we will need a minimum of 3,000 cookies. That does not cover the 200+ administrative workers.
Then there are the 300 sanitation workers and 500 police and private security people. Are you getting an idea of how many cookies this is. Plus, Flemish do not normally bake cookies so teaching them to do so and getting enough to provide the goal of 9 to 10 thousand cookies is really a God-sized endeavor.
So for now Lucy is baking cookies and teaching others to bake. John is busy in recruiting local partners to help with the baking and distribution.
Plus we are making the final preparations for our team from North Florida who will be coming to serve. A lot to do.
In addition to serving alongside Flemish believers during the morning coffee distribution and one church's crepe and coffee outreach we are beginning a new ministry this year. It is being called the Intentional Acts of Kindness Cookie Outreach. (Okay someone can come up with something catchy here).
Each year during the 10-day festivals the city of Gent receives 1.3 to 1.5 million visitors. (Current population is 240,000). The vast majority of these visitors are not from the immediate area. However we discovered several groups composed of mostly locals on which to focus. Each day there are around 500 drivers needed to operate the trams and buses in the city. With the night and festival buses there is service 24/7 for the 10 days. Another group of people, that is in essence invisible, is the sanitation workers. Last year they removed 124,000 metric tons of festival trash in 10 days. Finally there are the local police and private site security guards that work hard to keep the atmosphere fun, sane and safe.
Our goal is to give them a small bag of cookies as a "thank you" for their extra effort. Included with the homemade cookies will be a note of thanks from the group/church providing the cookies. We hope this will open the door to conversations about how God changes lives and blesses. We also hope it will help people see Evangelical Christians in a new, positive light.
Our American prayer partners have provided thousands of the gift bags for the cookies. But providing the cookies is a monumental task. If we provide bags of two cookies on three days to the tram/bus drivers we will need a minimum of 3,000 cookies. That does not cover the 200+ administrative workers.
Then there are the 300 sanitation workers and 500 police and private security people. Are you getting an idea of how many cookies this is. Plus, Flemish do not normally bake cookies so teaching them to do so and getting enough to provide the goal of 9 to 10 thousand cookies is really a God-sized endeavor.
So for now Lucy is baking cookies and teaching others to bake. John is busy in recruiting local partners to help with the baking and distribution.
Plus we are making the final preparations for our team from North Florida who will be coming to serve. A lot to do.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment