PLAINFIELD, Ind. (WISH) — The Indianapolis location for nonprofit Lifeline Christian Mission is bringing Hoosier hospitality to areas across the globe with high hunger and malnourishment. 

Lifeline Christian Mission ships was first founded forty years ago and keeps their Christian mission statement at the center of the work they do.

“To drive toward holistically healthy individuals and communities, we and our leaders focus on providing access to basic Christian education, increasing availability of affordable quality health care, expanding economic opportunities, and sharing God’s message of love and hope,” their site says.

In addition to their mission, their core values include: loving generously, creating possibilities, leading humbly, serving passionately, and igniting adventure.

As a part of that mission and those values, they ship meals to 11 different countries and many of those meals are packed at the Indianapolis centre.

“Some of them go locally and globally. They were in eastern Kentucky with the floods that took place,” Indianapolis centre director Danny Smith said. “Currently, they are in Ukraine with the Ukraine-Russian war.”

Smith says roughly 35,000 meals are shipped out of the centre, located in Plainfield, each month. 

Each one of the meals is carefully put together during “meal pack events.” 

Each event is customizable, and it is common for local businesses, schools, and churches to bring their teams out the the centre to pack meals. 

“It’s just a really cool way to get the guys interacting and give back to the community,” Director of Quality and Training at Miller Pipeline Jeremy White said. 

Events begin with a quick training session that covers the mission and specifics of the packing.

After training, every attendee suits up in a hair net and gets to work. 

Bags are filled with a nutrient dense recipe, one that is packed with protein and fulfills 75% of a child’s daily veggie needs. One bag contains six meals.

After each bag is packed, it is then loaded into a box. 36 bags fit into a box. The boxes are then placed on a pallet that holds 14,256 meals.

Finally, the boxes are stacked inside a massive shipping container. Each of the 40-foot shipping containers carries over 285,000 meals. 

The containers don’t just bring hope in the shape of a meal, though, they also bring business.

“Over a period of six to nine months, it gets converted to whatever is needed in the field,” Smith said. “It could become a health clinic, or a restaurant, or a coffee shop, or a dentist office or a woodworking shop.”

As the nonprofit works to continue spreading the light of Jesus, they encourage anyone to get involved by attending a meal packing event. For additional information, click here.