Winter Appeal stories of encouragement #1 - Harry & Penny

To help us pray for the Warm Spaces, the Love Your Neighbour Winter Appeal and those worst affected by the cost of living crisis, we want to share stories of encouragement of what God has been doing in our community.

First up, James shares about how God provided our amazing chefs Harry & Penny who will be cooking the hot meals for Warm Spaces…

We first heard about this couple called Harry & Penny back in 2021. The Beyond the Gate Little Church team had a massive answer to prayer - a Christian couple who are professional chefs wanted to come and cook for Beyond the Gate, fortnightly. Amazing!

A year later we found ourselves starting a Welcome Hub for Ukrainian refugees. This time we had some funding from our B&A Ukraine Crisis Appeal and some match funding. We contacted Harry & Penny to see if they would do some paid cooking for us. It turned out that Harry's grandmother was Ukrainian so he knew a bit about their cuisine. As gaps appeared elsewhere in our Kitchen over the summer, Harry & Penny began to fill them with food and smiles.

Back in February James had met with a few people and talked about the need for us to prepare for the cost of living crisis that would be coming later in 2022. The structure of our food ministries, as they were configured then, would be outstripped by a growing need.

Some more funding from other charities meant that we talked with Harry & Penny about taking them on part-time to consolidate our food ministries here at B&A and to expand them. As those conversations happened, we heard about Bristol City Council commissioning 'Warm Spaces' from churches around the city. Our friend, Andy Street, Chair of Christian Action Bristol, was hoping to get 20 churches to open up this winter to give people a 'Warm Space' in which to be in the cold of winter.

In a coffee shop on Whiteladies Road at the end of August, James pitched to Andy that, with a bit of extra funding, we could extend Harry & Penny to full-time and cook food from the kitchen at B&A that could be shipped out to the warm spaces around the city, enabling people to eat hot food in warm spaces and for under-resourced churches to extend the welcome of Jesus to those in need.

Andy almost jumped out of his chair. He suggested that we source the food from FareShare, an organisation he knows well, and that we get a plan together as soon as possible.

Since then, the PCC have signed off on the project. Funding has been pledged that will enable Harry and Penny to join the team for the next six months. They are now getting the kitchen up and running to produce hundreds of meals on a weekly basis and working with external partners to make sure this happens well and safely.

We're definitely 'building the bridge as we walk on it'. There have been so many answers to prayer along the way. We're really thankful for Harry and Penny's trust and faithfulness in all of this. They're still looking for somewhere to live, so when you pray for them, pray for that.

It has been amazing to see God answer prayers as we have followed Him on this journey. We know that the suffering that will come this winter will be huge, but we also know that God is giving us an opportunity to make a difference in the city.