By Danza Johnson | NEMS Daily Journal
TUPELO – For some families, a traditional Christmas dinner meant fast-food chicken nuggets, a fried apple pie and sweet tea from a drink machine, but thanks to Cross Pointe Ministries, turkey and yams will be on the table instead.
Cross Pointe hosted its second annual Pay it Forward Christmas Dinner for the community. The event, the brainchild of Executive Pastor Lisa Rea, provided 500 turkey dinners to families in need. The recipients of the meal received a frozen turkey, three cans of green beans, two cans of corn and two cans of yams. Rea said she wanted to find a way to help people in the community last Christmas and came up with the event.
“This was put on my heart last year,” she said. “We are just trying to encourage people to help others. You may need this help this year but maybe next year you can provide some type of help for someone else in need. Just pay it forward.”
Cross Pointe members and Rea’s husband, Senior Pastor Kevin Rea, dedicated their time Saturday to help pass out food. Rea said many people who came for the meals expressed gratitude for the blessing they were receiving.
“I literally had people crying because they had no idea how they were going to eat on Christmas,” he said. “They were so happy that they knew they were going to have something to good to eat. We wanted to provide a traditional Christmas meal to people and I think we’ve been able to do that.”
Michael Sanders of Tupelo said it felt good leaving his house Saturday morning knowing he was going to bring back Christmas dinner for his wife and two children.
“It’s been a very hard year for us,” said Sanders. “We had Thanksgiving dinner with a friend and his family but I think we’re going to invite them over to our house for Christmas. It brings tears to my eyes to see people do things like this for people they have never met. They have no idea what this meal means to us.”