Season 3 - Episode 9
To listen to an audio version of this post, visit www.covenantchurch.ca/podcasts/covenant-weekly.
Good morning, Covenant Family.
Today is an opportunity for us to hear about one of the ministries at Covenant. We have Terry Dupuis with us to answer a few questions about the Breakfast Ministry that Covenant is involved in. As Terry shares, you’ll hear that this is not something new. And, I would add, that this meal program is a part of many years of caring for practical food needs in our community. I trust you will enjoy hearing from Terry in this Covenant Weekly for March 12, 2024.
Terry, thank you for taking the time to join me to share about the Breakfast Ministry that Covenant supports and is involved in, in our community.
Could you provide us with a brief overview of the ministry? Is there an origin story to the ministry (or parts of the ministry)? Are there program dates and times? What does the ministry look like? How many people are involved in supporting this ministry?
Terry: It began about a dozen years ago as a partnership between the Anglican Church in town and Covenant - to be held at All Saints Anglican Church. Elise Robitaille was the coordinator for Covenant.
Our Covenant Breakfast Team looks after the Breakfast Ministry for the first Thursday of each month, from 8:30 to 10 am. We provide a nourishing hot breakfast for anyone in the community who may appreciate one. [There is another Covenant team that serves lunch one Thursday per month and teams from the Anglican church who serve breakfast and lunch once per month. This ensures that there is a hot meal available four weeks of every month.]
Our Covenant staff consists of Bea and myself [Terry], Jill Denbutter and Linda Bellisle. And I’m pleased to announce that we now have additional help from a woman and her two daughters who are not even associated with Covenant. They were looking for an opportunity for Christian service and happened upon reading about our Breakfast Ministry online. They phoned Crystal to ask how they could help.
Why is this ministry important to you personally? Why have you chosen to be involved and how has involvement in this helped shape you as a Jesus follower?
Terry: This ministry fulfills a need that is in our community to feed people who might otherwise not have many hot breakfasts. But there is a social need as well. We found this out during the pandemic. We couldn’t let people inside so we had to serve a takeout breakfast at the front door of the church. We discovered that a lot of people stopped showing up. So obviously the social aspect was as important to some of them as the food we provided.
As far as our involvement, back in 2014, shortly after Bea and I retired, we received a phone call from Marie Gignac asking us if we would consider helping out with serving the community breakfasts at All Saints. We said we’d think about it and decided to give it a try. But we weren’t sure if it was in our comfort zone. However, we’d already been thinking that we’d like to do some sort of volunteer work in the community.
So we gave the breakfast serving a try and found it to be most gratifying. After a few years, Elise was moving on to other ministries and asked Bea and me if we could take over the breakfast ministry. Which we did. This fall will mark 10 years of our involvement with the Community Breakfasts.
Regarding how it has helped shape me as a Jesus follower, I think it’s made me more sensitive to the needs of others.
Are there currently any needs that need to be met for this ministry to thrive?
Terry: Currently there is not a need as far as staffing goes. We have a sufficiently adequate number of team members, particularly now with three recent additions. But if anyone wants to donate items like muffins or cookies or other baked goods, those items would be welcomed!
Can you share a celebration story about how God is working through this ministry?
Terry: I don’t have a particular story to share. Just a general observation that it’s been wonderful to see relationships being established between many of our regular guests who have come to know each other. We’ve seen friendships being formed. As for ourselves, Bea and I have come to know quite a few members of our community that we wouldn’t otherwise know if it weren’t for the breakfast ministry.
Thanks so much for sharing about this ministry with us, Terry. And thank you, Covenant family many years of supporting those with food scarcity and social scarcity in our community. This ministry is supported through our compassion fund and through your prayers. Although Terry said they don’t have staffing needs, there may be weeks that others need off that you could help, or you may be able to help with Covenant’s lunch ministry or even one of the weeks that the Anglican Church is hosting a meal. If you’re interested in more information or would like to contribute some baked goods, you can reach out to us at office@covenantchurch.ca or phone the church 705-549-8477 and leave a message so that he can get back to you. We can get you in touch with whoever you need to talk with.