Following the worship service, 54 members of the church packed 14,256 meals at the Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) main site in Brooklyn, Minnesota. Each meal includes rice, soy, dried vegetables and powdered vitamins and minerals with chicken flavoring. The artificial flavoring is used out of respect for cultures that would not eat animal meat.
Working with FMSC at CHIC was considered by many to be a highlight of the triennial event. “We felt this is something we could just keep doing,” says Kay Sorvik, executive pastor.
“I think it’s neat for the teenagers from our congregation to see something that they started,” Sorvik says.
Packing the meals was as moving an experience for the church members as it was for those at CHIC. “We laid hands on the boxes and prayed for the people who would be getting the meals,” Sorvik says. “It was powerful.”
Sorvik hopes the congregation with a Sunday attendance of 750 can follow the CHIC example of packing at least half a million meals. Attendees in Knoxville, Tennessee, packed more than 590,000, surpassing the goal of 500,000.
The church staff will pack food together on Tuesday and the leadership team will schedule a date, too. Congregation members are being challenged to involve their small groups, choir and other groups to help meet the goal.
FSMC is located near the church, says Sorvik, but she hopes other churches in the Twin Cities area will participate as well.
The CHIC experience also left a lasting impression on FSMC. “They’re normally not open on Sundays, but they were so impressed with the Covenant kids at CHIC that the staff came in on their day off to make a presentation and open their place up,” says Sorvik. Meghan Platek, the site supervisor for the Brooklyn Park location, made a presentation during the worship service.
The day after the presentation, a sixth-grade boy from the church told his scout troop about the project and collected $30, Sorvik says.
For more information, contact Sorvik by telephone at 651-633-9615 or by email at ksorvik@salemcov.org.
