USA (MNN) — With Christmas just days away, CityTeam Ministries is busy distributing food boxes to poor and needy families in six cities across the United States. They’ve been hard at work getting needed supplies for the holiday distributions, including food, clothing, coats, gifts and hygiene items, and getting those things out into the communities where it’s needed.
But CityTeam’s Mark Duhrkoop says that it’s a ministry that goes beyond Christmas. Their goal is to cultivate communities that care for each other. Utilizing community partners and friendships, CityTeam focuses on the transformation of communities.
“We have this desire to reach out into the communities so that we are working with families, and bringing them to a point of, well, hopefully transformation,” says Duhrkoop. “So we bring the need to them, and then that builds on our ability to have a relationship with them, enter into their lives, start Bible studies, pray with them, and really start developing the community through new believers.”
When a community pulls together and cares about each other, says Duhrkoop, it’s exciting to be part of. “In fact it was so exciting at Thanksgiving here, in the city I work in, to see some of our families we’ve connected with, join with the community partners to start doing the food boxes to their neighborhood. And that’s where we see the transformation start to happen, where people care about their neighbors and then they start being developed into community leaders themselves.”
Delivering boxes and feeding meals to thousands of people takes a huge volunteer network, a network that is a tremendous help. Duhrkoop says that it’s amazing to see how God works out the details and meets the needs every year.
During the holidays, there is often a swelling of volunteers, and CityTeam is thankful for that, but Duhrkoop says resources, supplies and volunteers are needed on an ongoing basis. “The reality is that the poor, the needy are there year round, and especially as we’ve developed these new programs where we are reaching out to the community. And each city has these different kinds of programs, and we need volunteers all the time.”
If you would like to help CityTeam, contact them through their information listed here.
