Celebrating 25 years of breakfast (and baptisms)
How Hull mission partners made breakfast the most important meal of the community
Photo: Children arrive for breakfast before school on Hull’s Boulevard
Anna and Chris Hembury were already connected with local kids in a deprived area of Hull through running an after school club when they had an idea: a breakfast club where children could come and eat in a family atmosphere before school. This September marks 25 years of that Breakfast Club.
Mission partners Anna and Chris moved to Hull in 1997 to work with the local community in an area suffering from high unemployment, child poverty, addiction and mental and physical health problems.
They could see potential, despite many people writing off or ignoring those who live there, and got to know around 60 local kids through a Monday after school club.
But they wanted to see the children more regularly in order to deepen the relationships and share Jesus in a more relevant way through eating and sharing life together.
They also wanted to show local kids and families that God was busy every day, not just on a Sunday.
Small beginnings
In September 1999, Anna and Chris and a few volunteers came together for Breakfast Club’s first day. Everyone chipped in for supplies and eight children sat down to eat toast and cereal together.
At first only kids from the after school group came, but they soon started inviting their friends so numbers grew steadily. That Christmas, Anna and Chris decided to put on a cooked breakfast and invite parents as well.
Following that cooked breakfast, the club gradually became a space for parents and children to attend together. Now, 25 years on, around 50 people including parents come to Breakfast Club every weekday.
Anna and Chris estimate that between 2,600 and 2,800 different children, parents and teachers have attended the club over the past 25 years. There are even parents at the club who remember coming as children themselves!
Beyond cereal
Breakfast Club isn’t just a place for children and parents to gather and enjoy some family atmosphere and food before school. It has also become a place where people build friendships, find support and can see God at work every day.
Through volunteering at Breakfast Club, a number of older Christians have found their faith rekindled and discovered fresh purpose.
Additionally, Breakfast Club has opened the door for further community-building through curry nights, community fundraising events and banquet meals for local mums.
The club is also valued beyond those who attend – Anna and Chris share, “The school sees it as a real asset as they refer families to the club…”
Sharing Jesus
Just as they’d hoped, Breakfast Club did help Anna and Chris to get to know the local kids and their families better and made it easier to share Jesus’ story with them in relevant ways. Anna and Chris explain they “felt called to share our everyday lives with people and show a living relationship with Jesus over time”.
For many years now, Anna and Chris have also taken several of the kids from Breakfast Club away on camp with Frontier Camps in the summer, for a great holiday and to learn more about Jesus.
Over the past 27 years, Anna and Chris have seen a number of young people in the community commit their lives to Jesus, many of whom have been part of Breakfast Club.
One of those young people was Nicky.
Nicky
Anna and Chris first met Nicky when she was about six years old, when she started coming to the after school club and then Breakfast Club. They soon built a friendship with Nicky and her family and over time they became more like family than friends.
Nicky remembers “small daily experiences, like learning to read at Breakfast Club”. Nicky grew up with Bible stories at the after school club and the Breakfast Club, and later, weekly meals with other young people at Anna and Chris’s home, youth club, summer camps and a couple of trips to Greenbelt.
Over many years, Anna and Chris have been a stable presence through the ups and downs in Nicky’s life, and they were always there, especially Anna during Nicky’s teenage years.
Nicky says that Anna, Chris and others working with them, “have supported me and my family in every aspect of life, helping to make sure we always had community and friendship”.
Over the years, Nicky saw Anna and Chris’s relationship with Jesus in everyday life and saw the faith behind their work in the local community.
Gradually, Nicky’s own faith grew quietly and she came to know Jesus more and more for herself.
Baptism
When Nicky decided she wanted to be baptised, she wanted to do it at summer camp, a place where she’d taken so many steps of faith before.
Anna says: “Camp was church to Nicky in a way her local church wasn’t able to be at that time – an inclusive, supportive family, the good news made relevant, other young people to figure out faith with.”
So, at the evening meeting on the last night of camp, Anna and Chris used what was at hand – the big steel buckets which they used for washing the pots after meals. They poured three buckets of water over Nicky – baptising her in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
They reflect, “It was a profound act, not only for Nicky on her faith journey but also because you could see by their faces, her example made this a possibility on the journeys of all the other children there.”
Nicky is still very much involved with camp, now as a leader. She shares her faith with others through leading the camp crew, spending time with the young people during the week and leading reflections and giving one of the short evening talks.
Still going strong
And what of Breakfast Club?
Anna, Chris and the volunteers are still up bright and early each day, faithfully setting up, cooking, sharing food and fun.
Day by day, they continue to build friendships and invest in the community, living out the love of Jesus on the margins.
Anna and Chris comment, “In terms of faith the community is able to see that God is busy every day and perhaps even that Jesus is someone who can be trusted.”
