Gather them in from the Highways and Byways

Barney Rumble and his son-in-law, Patrick Seage, who does all the cooking

In small rural communities people who have no one to share Christmas with are often gathered up by others and invited to have a meal. But what happens in the larger towns like Bathurst? This year I went to help at the Community Christmas Lunch. This remarkable lunch celebrated it's 25th anniversary this Christmas. Barney and his family have been organising it since the beginning.

Volunteers come from all sorts of places to help. Prior to the lunch there was a flurry of activity wrapping presents and laying tables for 200 people. Bon Bons, lollies and small treasures made the tables look lovely.

Guests started arriving from 11am for lunch at 12.30pm. As there were lots of helpers this gave me time to sit and talk to people. I was struck by the range of people who attended. I had assumed that it would be all single people who didn't have anywhere else to be, but this was not the case at all. There certainly were people who are probably struggling financially, but there were also families and couples.

One family I spoke to I got the impression that they didn't really know how to do Christmas for themselves because as children their parents had always taken them to a community lunch.

Kids getting their presents from Santa

Another couple lived nearby and had been coming ever since the lunch moved to the Hope Church across the road. They went to their kids for breakfast and then came to the community lunch.

I must say I had a great day and met lots of people, some who are members of the local Uniting Church, and it was a lovely way to start building relationships here in Bathurst.

If you would like to read more about the lunch you can see the local newspaper article by clicking here.

Barney briefing the volunteers at the beginning of the day

I hope you all had good Christmases and New Years as we celebrated the extraordinary gift of God's Son.

Julie