Summer Activity Program

Today is the conclusion of the Summer Activity Program at the Church of Peace and the Rock Island Parks and Recreation programs at various area schools. In a few minutes I will run up to the park to participate in a lunch of hot dogs and ice cream where all these sites come together in one place for a celebration.

We will continue to serve lunch for the next two weeks here at the church and at Century Woods. There has been remarkable growth in the number of lunches at Century Woods. We began the summer with about six children. It has grown to about 60 meals a day! We hope to do some enrichment activities at Century Woods and here at church for the next two weeks, and then school will resume.

It has been a very active summer so far.

Feeding 5000

By our estimate we reached 5000 meals on June 22. Our summer meals program for children began on June 7, and at the end of lunch on June 22 had served 5000 meals. Jesus did it in one sitting. It took us twelve serving days to reach the same point. And we have lots of help and lots of partners.

The part of the account of Jesus feeding 5000 that always strikes me is when Jesus says to the disciples, "You give them something to eat." (Matthew 14:16; Mark 6:37; Luke 9:13) It is only subsequent to this command that Jesus feeds the people.

When in the scripture Jesus speaks to the disciples I hear him speaking to us in the church. I believe that Jesus says to us, "you give them something to eat." And our summer lunch program for children is one of the ways that we at Church of Peace respond to this request from Jesus.