Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 22 September 2024 by Major Michael Ramsay. Based on the Message preached on 02 May 2021 by Captain Michael Ramsay.
This is the 2024 Version, to read the much shorter 2021 version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2021/04/matthew-1413-21-mark-630-44-luke-910-17.html
Today
is a weekend to pray for the end of human trafficking. I have spoken about that
a lot recently. The Lord blessed us at The Salvation Army to be used by Him to
help out those Vietnamese workers who were living in deplorable conditions –
right here in our community. I wasn’t actually going to speak about that today
and I wont actually speak much about it. I do hope that we as a society can put
an end to closed visas in our country soon or at least some day.
This
week I actually had to sign an affidavit about all of that. The interpreter who
helped with the situation in Port Alberni, the San Group is now suing. She is
just a window washer. She has no money. They are suing her. I have spoken to
lawyers (plural) this past week. It does seem intimidating. I had previously
been warned about San Group. In the next week or so their legal team is going
to cross examine me and others. One professional commented to me that this is
not what people usually do in these circumstances – sue interpreters; it seems
heavy handed in the least. It is intimidating. But I am not going to speak any
more about that today. I have already used that as an illustration in two
sermons here and one at Summer Rain in August.
September,
without dealing with all this, has been a busy enough month. Many of you here have
been working hard away. Many of you here have blessed us and others, as you
have been blessed by serving our Lord and the community.
Yesterday
was our big annual Thanksgiving food drive, sponsored by Foodbanks BC and
spear-headed by Bruce and Dorothy Patterson and their church. You may know
Bruce and Dorothy. They have come to our Christmas Eve service for a number of
years and in the previous year or two have actually joined our rank of
volunteers at the Army. Thank you to everyone who helped. We raised about 5000
pounds of food so far and an undisclosed amount of money. This will help a lot
of people this time of year.
The
weekend before that was the Toy Run. The Salvation Army in Alberni Valley has
been involved in that since before we came to town. When we arrived, the Army had
already taken over serving coffee and doughnuts at Little Qualicum Falls a
couple of years prior .The Salvation Army then took over the Bread of Life Soup
Kitchen and for two or three years provided a chilli and hotdog lunch on behalf
of the Soup Kitchen at the Glenwood Centre at the end of their ride after
providing a breakfast of coffee and doughnuts on behalf of the Army at the
start of the ride. That was a lot of work with all the volunteers we needed and
a very long day starting at 6am or so and ending when we picked up the toys in
the evening or in the afternoon. I was blessed to be able to pray for the
riders and this year our team of expert workers just concentrated on serving
lunch instead of both doughnuts and lunch – you all did a great job! And many
toys were raised for children and others in our community.
You all
have been busy. The week prior to that we were at the Fall Fair and we were in
the Fall Fair parade. This was a great opportunity to share with the community
our testimony of how the Lord has used TSA in our community to serve our
neighbours in Jesus’ name. Most of that service seems to be around food too! We
are blessed to be the community soup kitchen and the community food bank and
feed a lot of people. More than 14 000 just at the Bread of Life in August
alone – multiply that by 12! That is not including all the families we feed
through the foodbank and all the kids we feed through the breakfast and lunch
programs when school is out. The Lord feeds a lot us people through us. And
like I said, just yesterday we raised 5000 lbs of food for those in need in our
community.
Today,
in Mark’s Gospel, we read about the feeding of the 5000 by Jesus and his
disciples. This is a very significant story. The writers of all four of the
Gospels included it in their biography of Jesus’ and their record of his
ministry. It is actually the only miracle that all four of the Gospel-writers
mention. The authors John and Matthew were both present when this event
occurred, and Luke’s version of this incident is recorded after some
significant research. John Mark, whose account we read today, was certainly
part of the inner circle of Jesus’ followers (remember from those of us who are
part of the Tuesday night Bible Study: he was Barnabus’ companion on early
missionary journey’s and Barnabus and Paul had a big fight about him); so Mark undoubtedly
heard about this incident quite a bit - as he himself actually may or may not
have been present for this as well.
John
and Matthew were both there when this happened. John has a little bit different
of a memory of this event than Matthew but no more of a difference of a
recollection than Susan and I have over some of the events of our life and
ministry.
This
story struck me anew this week as I was looking for something in Mark to preach
about. I was surprised to learn this week that I haven’t preached more often on
this passage; it seems like a natural one for The Salvation Army to speak about
– though I did reference it in a piece I wrote that was included in the 2008
book One Thing and the 2011 book One for All both by
Commissioner James Knaggs and Major Stephen Court about a miracle God did while
we were helping out with Emergency Disaster Services relief work in Texas years
ago.
I am
going to read an excerpt from my account in One Thing[i]:
Our
canteens were instructed to make sure that they gave away all of their food
before they came in for the night. They did not want food returned when people
were going without. One canteen had some food left. It was getting late so they
were seeking out someone to give their last Cambro (container) of food to. They
prayed. One person then saw a line of about 12-18 tired and hungry looking
construction workers so they headed over to offer them their food. They were
really appreciative.
As
they were feeding these men, a number of school busses filled with people
pulled up. It is my understanding that they served over 800 meals at that
location – no one went away hungry. Feeling blessed by what the Lord had done
they started to clean up. (Now there was a non-believer, a Red Cross worker on
their canteen with them today). Someone picked up the Cambro from which they
fed the 800 meals and read from the side of it, ‘serves 90 meals’. The Lord fed
more than eight times that number and no one went hungry. The Red Cross worker
who was helping them on the truck that day began to cry. He said that he had
never believed in God – until now.
That
is a real-life miracle that I will never forget. We have a similar miracle
happening right here in the Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island today, right
now. When the crowds in the disciples’ day were without food, Jesus said ‘you
feed them!’ to which they replied, ‘we don’t have enough money to feed them!’
to which the response is still ‘no really, feed them!’ They do and God provides
the food needed in the miraculous way He provided the needed food.[ii]
In the
Alberni Valley here we have for a long time, long before we arrived, been used
by the Lord to feed a lot of people in the Valley here. Throughout the pandemic
we fed people hundreds of thousands of times – people who may not have eaten
otherwise. At our height we were feeding more than 700 individuals a day and only
God could have done that. Now we are providing breakfast, lunch and dinner at
the Bread of Life soup kitchen seven days a week and other evening meals off
the Salvation Army truck and at the Bread of Life and we are feeding even more
than the 700 a day, which during covid-19 was a miraculous number! Now the
miracle continues as we feed not only people shut-in in our community, families
who need the food bank and people who eat at the soup kitchen; we also feed
those who reside in our own shelter, the Friendship Centre Shelter on 8th
and the Tiny Homes and many more people in crises and more.
Feeding
all the people the Lord fed through us during the pandemic: Think about this
miracle. There is no way when Covid-19 hit that we could possibly have fed that
amount of people and, honestly, the Bread of Life was broke. Jesus said to us
“you feed them.” “We don’t have enough money.” The soup kitchen was close to turning
out the lights forever when they approached the Army about serving the Lord and
the community together before the pandemic and then the Lord produced miracle
after miracle after miracle: we keep breaking bread to serve the crowds which
seem to be without number and the Lord keeps producing more food with which to
feed them. The Soup kitchen doors are open; and the agencies in this community:
we are working together like we have never done before and we are continuing to
feed people to a tune of more than 14 000 times a month which works out to more
than 168 000 times a year at the soup kitchen alone, not including emergencies,
the food truck and Christmas (!) and not including any of the families that the
Lord uses us to feed from the food bank (!) and/or the schools – and we are
still going strong. This is a miracle! And through this time more people have
given their lives to the Lord here and we have faithfully put them to work. We
continue to experience the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes right here in
the Valley each and every day. Praise be to God. May we continue to serve the food
the He has multiplied and witness His Grace in our community.
Let us
pray.
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