The Food of BUMP Philly

I feel like BUMP Philly merits a post about food. BUMP Philly is relatively unique in that the food is provided by people from the church cooking every day, so the dishes are slightly more varied than one might expect on a normal missions trip.

When I did BUMPs growing up, one of the things I was nervous about was food. However, I think one of the most important ways that the church shows love to the Philly teams is in providing food for them. It’s important because it enhances one of BUMP’s goals of providing a cross-cultural experience to the teams, and part of that is manifested in the food of Grace Church.

Grace Church has a large African population, so there were several meals provided by Pastor Theodor, his wife Love, and members from the African congregation. This included beans and rice, chicken that was tender enough to fall off the bone, and most memorably, the following dish:

Fish and Plantains with spicy/sweet sauce

Don’t freak out; it was delicious. But it was very different from what most 13-18 year olds are used to eating (in fact, most of us!) but Peter and I thought it was important for the students to have the opportunity to have food that represented the culture of the church. While it might be hard to think about anything else than the fact you have a fish head staring back at you, it’s a reminder that the body of Christ is vast and diverse, and sharing a meal together like one eaten in the neighborhood was an important thing for the teams to see.

We also had “eat local” day midweek. We wanted the teams to have an opportunity to try food from restaurants in Feltonville, which included the Italian place, the Chinese place, the Mexican place, or (my personal favorite, and the one most of the BUMPers opted for) the diner on the corner run by three sassy Serbian sisters and their mother that make a killer cheesesteak.

The church thinks it’s important to support local businesses as much as possible, so we felt it was important to give the teams a chance to try the neighborhood food and be able to support the neighborhood at the same time.

A shout-out goes to Mrs. Mary, one of the long-time attenders of the church, who made homemade cakes for the groups and bought them the famous Philly pretzel rods for snacks one day. Another shout-out goes to Mrs. Chrisi Brown, who took time out of her rather scary week to make us chili on the last day as well.

And of course the biggest unsung hero of the week was Mr. John, who did a lot of the breakfasts and the rest of the dinners and lunches.

I know this might seem silly, but one of the wonderful things about BUMP Philly is how much love the church shows the groups, and one of those wonderful ways is through the love of providing a taste of the church and of Philly to the groups as a way to say thanks.       

Sometimes we got to eat the leftover VBS snacks too!