“We are trying to break down barriers by actually having a meal together.”

Craig Macartney
Senior Writer

Three local ministries have partnered to build bridges in Chinatown. This past Monday, the MET and Connecting Streams joined forces with Ottawa Chinese Alliance Church (OCAC) to relaunch Bridges—an inner-city outreach program the MET ran for 30 years.

Bridges was a drop-in meal program that also offered a message and worship. COVID restrictions shut it down until fall 2021, when the ministry trained teams and sent them out to share meals and fellowship on the street with those they met. That, too, was eventually shut down, but now Bridges has found a new home.

“This is a great opportunity for us to reach out to the needy in our neighbourhood, with the love of Christ,” says Howard Ngan, OCAC’s English pastor. “With Bridges, we give them food, we have volunteers sitting with them at the table, eating with them, getting to know them, and we have a Gospel message every week.”

That community is central to Bridges, says Dan Byrne, of Connecting Streams.

“You can get meals in this city, pretty much any night of the week. What is different about Bridges is it tries to form community.”

“There’s no difference between participants and volunteers.”

Bridges was always intended as an in-person gathering. When COVID restrictions shut them down and they shifted to reaching out on the streets, teams continually heard that their contacts missed the community environment.

“One major difference from before COVID is that Bridges used to be like a worship service for people to come and engage,” says Hemal Gandhi, manager of the MET’s community engagement. “This time we are actually focusing more on creating an environment for Christian community.”

Gandhi says the program is no longer about homeless people coming for a meal. Because people are looking for community so much, they adjusted Bridges to be a place where the needy can share a meal with volunteers, in a context of Christian fellowship.

“We are trying to break down barriers by actually having a meal together, around a table, dialoguing and getting to know each other’s stories. There’s no difference between participants and volunteers. We’re trying to demonstrate that there’s no difference between people who are homeless and us, because ultimately we are all justified by our faith.”

That community ethos is really clear, down to the way Bridges re-launched. They have the original vision from the MET, with support from Connecting Streams, hosted at OCAC, with volunteers from all three ministries and from the Chinese Christian Church of Ottawa.

“During COVID, people have been more needy and more anxious. We wanted to do something, but we were not sure how to start,” Ngan says. “I am happy that this is a collaboration between ministries.”

“It’s been a beautiful thing to see,” adds Rick Ojala, a volunteer with Connecting Streams. “No one is trying to carve out their piece of the pie, there is just the unity of multiple ministries working together for a common purpose.”