The fellowship at Harehills Lane have had a wonderful time this Easter.
“It all began on Maundy Thursday when we had four pallets of non-perishable food delivered to the front doors of the church. This was not planned - it just happened out of the blue. A quick decision was made to distribute some Easter provisions to those who we know in the community who are finding things a little tight.
“The food was donated by food suppliers that had over-runs. If we had not agreed to take the food it would have been incinerated. All the food was in date with long sell-by dates.
“We had to make a temporary shop in our prayer room in the church building. We are calling this a ‘cashless shop’ - it was packed from floor to ceiling with food and had a grand opening after the service on Good Friday,
“Many asylum seekers and people with no money came and took food for themselves and their families. The news was networked by those who had received the food and people continued to arrive with much laughter and relief. This was a wonderful thing and a great resurrection provision.
“The blessing continues.........
“We gathered for worship on Easter morning for a baptismal service for a friend who has been coming to God's Garage in Dewsbury. After his baptism I made an appeal from the baptistry to those who are followers of Jesus but had not been baptised yet. I asked if anyone wanted to come and be baptised to come forward.
“I announced that we had plenty of towels and clothes from our community clothes store downstairs, so they had no need to walk home in the wet.
“Someone came forward when I made the appeal and they were baptised..... after the baptism I renewed the appeal....this happened five times.....after each baptism I made a fresh appeal and they kept coming. Five more came forward and with much laughter and joy were baptised.
“Andy Hobbs (who is part of the fellowship) gave me a hand with the extra baptisms. After the baptisms I sprinkled everyone who was gathered around the baptistry as we also renewed the baptismal promises of all those in the service. It was wonderful resurrection chaos and we could sense God was up to something!
“Also on Easter Sunday morning we heard some more resurrections stories of where the food had gone to on Good Friday.
“One story is that of a young woman who has been part of the church for some time (an asylum seeker) and her son. As they made their way to the Good Friday service the young woman was praying ‘God can you provide for me? I only have a small amount of money for food and I need to buy clothes for my son, so I will have to go without food to provide for my baby.’
“When she arrived at church she was greeted with the ‘cashless shop’ and could not control her joy and wept as she was doing her shopping for free and also wept all the way home. This was one of many resurrection stories that we heard on Sunday about the provision of the ‘cashless shop’.
“These are only a few tales of the adventures we had a Harehills Lane over Easter!”
