The Christmas Bowl 2022
Give Hope!
Share God’s love with a refugee going hungry this Christmas.
Since 1949, compassionate Christians like you have followed Rev Frank Byatt’s legacy, coming together each Christmas across Australia and the world to provide safety in exile for people forced from their homes by conflict and disaster.
How to take part
The Christmas Bowl is held in churches across Australia from The Reign of Christ Sunday to the first Sunday after Christmas. Some churches choose to celebrate the Christmas Bowl for each of the seven weeks, while others select one Sunday to take part. Whichever you choose, the Christmas Bowl remains a powerful demonstration of our unity in Christ.
Your gift through the Christmas Bowl will support local partners to meet urgent needs and help create a world where uprooted people have a safe place to belong.
The impacts of the climate crisis, rising inflation and the ongoing war in Ukraine are all contributing to growing food scarcity for many communities already uprooted by conflict and disaster around the world. This global food crisis is now pushing millions to the brink of famine with families in urgent need of food, care and lifesaving support.
Visit the Christmas Bowl website to find our more.
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Christmas puddings
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| (Above) The Adamstown Pudding Kitchen has been selling puddings and donating profits to welfare projects since 1971. Credit: Adamstown Pudding Kitchen |
This year, The Adamstown Pudding Kitchen in NSW, is donating a portion of its pudding sales to the Act for Peace Christmas Bowl, to support our partners and share hope with refugees this Christmas by providing food, care and lifesaving support.
"We’re all working towards a common good, it’s a lovely thing", says Janet, Kitchen manager.
When it comes to Christmas puddings, there’s a lot of opinions on what creates the perfect balance of fruit and flavour.
So, what makes these puddings so special? According to the kitchen’s manager, Janet, there are a few rare ingredients:
A rich history.
It was over 50 years ago, when a member of the Adamstown Uniting Church turned to her grandmother’s pudding recipe to help raise money for her brother returning from the Vietnam War.
Janet says, she "started making Christmas puddings at home and then it took off from there. Eventually we built a commercial kitchen and since we’ve been selling from the store here and then moved online. This year is the first year we’ve moved into the retail market too."
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| The kitchen relies on a community of volunteers who offer their time to help prepare the puddings for sale. Credit: Adamstown Pudding Kitchen |
A caring community of volunteers.
"A lot of the work, the wrapping of the puddings, dry mixing of the dried fruit for the puddings is done by volunteers. They come in once a week... It creates such a beautiful sense of community, everyone working together."
A shared purpose.
"I love working with food. But I think what's really wonderful about our work is that we’re also raising funds for welfare projects. I think we all need to be mindful and aware and supportive of those who aren't as fortunate."
When the world feels heavy, you only need to look around our community, to passionate people like Janet and her team of volunteers, to see hope.
Working together, with compassion and empathy, is the only way we will tackle the displacement crisis.
The Christmas Bowl is the Christmas appeal of Act for Peace, the international aid agency of the NCCA.
