In the weeks leading up to Easter 2020 at Ekklesia Christian Church, I was reeling at the possibility that we may be unable to gather for what is essentially the “Super Bowl” of the evangelical church. It’s our main event of the year. In late March, President Trump made some hopeful statements about churches reopening by this time, but—even as I read this news—I doubted the reality of that prospect.
As a young church that has been not mobile and operating in a building of our own for barely a year, we hadn’t yet had time to establish deep Easter traditions as a congregation. We were planning forward based on our experience in the previous year. In 2019, having just moved into our building and experienced a huge surge in attendance, we’d held a carnival that drew thousands. It was a blessing to our community and we had eagerly planned for a repeat performance. Coronavirus was undoubtedly going to cancel those plans, and as a special event coordinator for our church, I was scrambling for a win.
Ekklesia’s fifth core value is, “We dare to believe. We make audacious, faith-filled moves, knowing God is able.” I try to undergird every event and ministry where I play a role with this core value. We intend to allow God to work through us to accomplish things so big that they’re beyond our capacity and must point to Him. That is really the running theme in our whole church story.
Because of current events in our nation and especially because this is an election year, social media can be a pretty hostile place and it’s not where I’d recommend anyone go looking for God. In spite of this, as we faced a hole in our Easter plan and as we were praying that God would direct us in how to fill it, I believe God absolutely led Jody England to make a simple Facebook post that led to an answer to our prayers and his.
On March 27, two weeks before Easter and with the end to quarantine no where in sight, Jody posted this: “Tina Wilson, are you ready to do more Amazing Kingdom work? It's time to do a GAP pack! International Disaster Emergency Service, Jody England, Ekklesia Christian Church, Damou Christian Mission, Hope for Haiti's Children! #fillthatcontainer259200!”
I didn’t understand the hashtag at all so I immediately reached out to him to learn more. After all, an opportunity for amazing kingdom work was exactly what I’d been praying for.
He explained that IDES—who has already been an incredible blessing to Ekklesia, enabling us to repair and rebuild dozens of homes in the aftermath of unprecedented flooding in Horry County, South Carolina—holds meal packs to benefit worldwide missions in partnerships with churches around the country. During these packing events, tens of thousands of meals are assembled. After a few months and several packing events, IDES collects enough meals to fill an entire shipping container (nearly 260,000—hence the hashtag), and at that time, the container gets sent to its destination to bless people in need. However, IDES wanted to do something audacious—fill an entire container in one event!
This was exactly the daring challenge we were praying for. It was going to be much more impactful—and much more costly—than a community carnival; and it was just the kind of faith-filled thing we love to do at Ekklesia.
The cost for this mission, while high, was minimal compared to the impact that would come from it—$40,000, or about $0.16 per meal. How else could we impact that many people for that low of a cost? Our congregation and The Solomon Foundation—a world-changing extension fund serving the Christian Church and Church of Christ—gave cheerfully and generously to support this effort.
We still had the problem of Easter though. What did that look like with the church disassembled and the community quarantined? Our pastor brought this together for us beautifully. When Christ resurrected—the event we celebrate as Easter Sunday—few people were present. It wasn’t until Pentecost—the birth of the church, 50 days later—that we see the masses come together. Modeling that, he decided that Easter would be—rather than a time of gathering and celebration—a time of committing and discipleship for Ekklesia. Our new “Super Bowl” would be Pentecost. So it was on Easter Sunday that we announced the meal pack plan to our church (via online services), we collected special Easter offerings to fund the mission, and we dove into a discipleship program called 40 Days with Jesus, followed by another called 10 Days to Pentecost, where we set our hearts on Jesus and what He desires in our lives, our church, and our outreach.
During this time, in addition to daily prayer, Scripture reading, and discipleship, we were able to hold Zoom calls and online services where our church met and connected with Jody and IDES and with Jessica and Loubens, directors of the Damou Christian Mission who would receive the meals we would pack. We spent time talking to our church and our children about the needs of Haiti and the impact of the mission we’d be doing.
We anticipated that this mission would be a win, but everything about it exceeded our expectations. The timing couldn’t have been better. After people had been confined to their homes and had missed the fellowship of the body of Christ for more than two months, this event was such a refreshing and life-giving time of re-gathering. Jody and Joe had already provided us with every resource we needed during the planning phase so participants were able to come in understanding the method, the means, and the goals of the meal packing shifts. Still, they planned, organized, and led all of the logistics enabling us to focus on connection and fellowship with the meal pack participants.
We held two three-hour packing shifts on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, leading up to Pentecost Sunday. Each shift was responsible for packing 43,000 meals to get us to our goal of nearly 260,000. We started strong and prayed people wouldn’t become tired but would maintain the energy of the first groups. As more and more volunteers poured in, the stamina wasn’t maintained but increased with each incoming shift. By the fifth shift, we had to slow people down so that the final shift would have some meals left to pack; and the last shift of the pack blew through the goal with time left to break down the operation, clean and reset the space for Sunday services, and engage in a prayer service around the container that would be soon setting sail for Haiti. Thanks to the weather delay of the SpaceX rocket launch, we were able to work against that countdown clock, displayed on the church’s 30-foot LED wall, and watch this historic event together as we packed the last few boxes of meals.
From its inception as an answered prayer, through the planning and funding phase, and to its execution, the Haiti Meal Pack is a highlight of Ekklesia’s short six year history. We are eagerly looking toward the opportunity to do this again and we hope to see it become an annual Pentecost celebration for us.