"Hi, I'm from ADRA. I know you're in trouble, I'd like to bring you some food, enough for two weeks for you and your children. Then I'll bring you more. May I?" The answer: "Yes, you can! But tell me who you are and why you're doing this." "I'm a Christian, a Seventh-day Adventist and a health care worker, I distribute an all-powerful drug: love!
This is one of the incidents experienced by Adventist volunteers in Rome, during the long weeks of confinement at home. Renato Bozzacchi, from the Adventist church in Lungotevere, is one of the founders of 'Officina'. It is a volunteer group which started in 2013 and is engaged in social activities for personal support and assistance. Also operating in the capital city, is the coordination of ADRA Italia (Adventist Development and Relief Agency). United together, the two charities have offered continuous food aid to a few hundred families (a thousand people) who are unable to buy enough to eat.
ADRA and Officina worked on the preparation and distribution of food parcels in the city of Rome. "Our small workshop has been incorporated into a larger one: ADRA! For several months, Pastor Daniele Benini (who serves the Filipino Adventist community), assisted by Cornelio Lupu (pastor of the Adventist church in Lungotevere) and Mihai Bumbar (pastor of the Romanian Adventist church in Piazza Vulture), organized the distribution of food in the community.
Thanks to a valuable service that was rendered by many volunteers, it was possible to help many families in need. "With a quick word of mouth," continued Bozzacchi, "several hundred destitute families were selected, the new poor, those who found themselves in desperate conditions because of the pandemic".
"But how can one beat the Coronavirus?" he concluded, "There are no drugs or vaccines yet. But there are many another 'diseases', other 'Coronas', from which we should all fight the infection with: love! This is the turning point. Love is the vaccine for all the evils in the world".