Church group wraps up 40-day mission of help

Published 12:05 pm Monday, December 13, 2010

About 70 members of Triumph Church were feeling triumphant Saturday as they wrapped up a 40-day mission to serve through food baskets and repairing and improving an elderly woman’s home.

“It’s really easy to be just surviving on your own,” Pastor Mike Fields said. “By getting out like this, it is showing the community what real Christianity is all about.”

About $3,000 in food was distributed Saturday to households in need around the city after the group met at Triumph’s outreach building at 1600 Clay St., also known as the Dream Center.

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After a quick word of instruction and prayer from Fields, the volunteers divvied up the 100 shopping bags of food and left for distribution.

“We want to represent Jesus,” Fields reminded the groups as they left.

“We are a very mission-oriented church; we have several missions in foreign countries.” Fields said. “But we also don’t want to forget that there is a mission right in our city. We forget that people are going to bed hungry here, that there are homeless here.”

Spearheaded by Fields, Vicky Logue, director of member services for the church, and food program director Lorraine Ghrigsby, the outreach program began its mission about six weeks ago.

Logue and Ghrigsby have been overseeing several groups within the church as they collected food donations from local businesses, made baked goods and filled the bags.

“I think at Christmas time, this program is really important,” Logue said. “Mainly with the food, we just want to let them know that somebody still cares about them, because to a lot of the people the food and a handshake means a lot.”

The group’s other big project was to renovate the kitchen in the Locust Street home of Dorothy Schaffer.

“We put in new floor joists,” Fields said, “and this lady had been living with only one cabinet for years, so a company in Mandeville has donated a set.”

Fields also is looking to replace the front porch sometime after New Years.

Schaffer who lives with her daughter, Malinda Tolliver, and 4-year-old granddaughter, Brianna, said this was a great help.

“This will help us save a lot of money and buy her some presents for Christmas,” Tolliver said of Brianna.

“The Bible teaches us that if we see our brother in need, we are supposed to do more than pray for him,” Fields said. “If we are able to, we are supposed to help and share.”

Triumph Church, at 136 Honeysuckle Lane off of North Frontage Road, has been in Vicksburg since 1990.