Niva’s wrinkled cheeks were damp as she searched the box containing an unexpected gift.
The surprise gift stirred emotion, but her tears reflected relief.
The senior woman told Pastor Francisco Fernandez that the Box of Love®, chock-full of goodies for a Thanksgiving meal, arrived just in time.
“Thank you so much,” Niva told him. “I had no money. I didn’t know what I was gonna do. You guys are a blessing.”
‘I had no money. I didn’t know what I was gonna do. You guys are a blessing.’
The blessing was a joint project of Pastor Fernandez’s Brooklyn church, Iglesia Sol De Justicia, and the Inner City Ministry of Cru®, which provided the boxes to the congregation. In addition to all of the ingredients needed for a complete Thanksgiving meal, the box contained gospel literature revealing to its recipients God’s love for them.
Niva’s Box of Love did more than open a door; it opened her heart. As a result, she welcomed follow-up visits by the church team, and soon she was regularly attending Sol De Justicia, located in the shadows of the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood.
“The next thing you know, she started participating in giving out Boxes of Love®, food, and clothing; whatever we had, we were giving out, even for the babies,” Pastor Fernandez said.
Niva officially joined the church and found herself at the church door as part of the congregation’s welcoming team.
“She’s all fired up because she wants to be part of this movement of helping others,” he said.
‘She’s all fired up because she wants to be part of this movement of helping others.’
Pastor Fernandez said the Boxes of Love are especially needed as inner-city communities face unprecedented pressure from inflation.
“The church has to stand up and do something. I mean, no matter how little you can do, any little thing you can do is worth it,” he said in a debriefing video. “This is a time that the church comes out and engages the community. It’s not like giving out tracts. Everybody can give out tracts … but who do you really engage with?”
The longtime Cru partner said community engagement gained even more urgency for him during the early 2020s when distancing restrictions of COVID isolated residents. In moments of uncertainty, urban pastors like Fernandez multiply their efforts, even when resources are limited.
“I lost a family member during COVID-19, had the funeral on a Friday, and Saturday was a distribution,” he said. “I had to go out and get food even though I had a broken heart because there’s other people out there that are still in need.”
More than six years after the emergence of COVID, the needs have not disappeared; they’ve merely shifted, highlighting the powerful urgency of ministry collaboration to serve and evangelize in the name of Jesus.
In addition to Boxes of Love, the other Compassionate Products™ that Cru provides to inner-city churches and ministries — PowerPack® backpacks, Homeless Care Kits and Easter Bags — are important resources to help vulnerable neighbors, but the longer-lasting impact is opening locked doors. Once people feel seen, they are more likely to be interested in what the giver has to say.
“The most important thing is to listen,” the pastor said. “It’s not like you just go out there giving them a tract. When you go give that box, you engage the person, you talk to the person. They have a lot to say. They need to talk to somebody. They need answers to their questions.”
‘When you go give that box, you engage the person, you talk to the person. They have a lot to say. They needed to talk to somebody.’
Often, in the midst of their trials, they are asking, “Where is God?”
“When they see the church out there, you are that beacon of light that’s shining through that darkness, and it’s opening people’s eyes,” he said. “We’ve had people that we reached out to and are now serving in our church through those Boxes of Love that we’ve given them.”
