In 2005, we decided it was time to stop going to church. We'd been going to North Coast Church for over 20 years, and it was time to go do church. We ended up in a small Xhosa community in South Africa. God stretched our faith as He asked us to simply "go serve." Needless to say we were clearly outsiders, but kids starting coming to our discipleship groups. It wasn’t long before some of Debra’s girls approached her one day saying “Mama Deb, can you help us? We’re hungry – we haven’t eaten in 2 days.” Debra gathered some Xhosa mamas and started cooking pots of soup to feed the kids and before long our discipleship group had grown from 60 to 300 kids in about a week. We felt God calling us to feed the “least of these” as long as there was a need and decided that to do so, we’d need bigger pots! We shared our hearts with Chris Brown, Pastor at North Coast Church and he traveled all the way to South Africa to see firsthand how God was moving. He returned to North Coast Church sold out for our shared vision and he quickly rallied the support of North Coasters. In 2007, our first super kitchen opened in Paarl, South Africa – glory to God! It fed 1.5 million people in its first year in operation. Since then, God has encouraged us to continue feeding in the poorest corners of all the earth and so we’ve built 5 kitchens in Haiti, Mexico and South Africa. This past July we celebrated a huge milestone, over 10 million meals served! We are humbled and grateful to be a part of what God is doing through Outside the Bowl. Through it all, our main concern isn’t the food we are serving up (although, it is tasty!) but the ministry that goes along with it, Outside the Bowl. Together, with thousands of partners we truly are feeding the hungry…body and soul.
Post written by Jae & Debra Evans