Bridges are an essential part of transportation and are used to navigate over roads, river and sometimes menacing terrain. But despite their importance, you probably use them without even thinking. You cross over treacherous gaps without batting an eye. You avoid massive obstacles and delays effortlessly. Bridges are just there, part of our everyday life. You’ve instinctively come to rely on them.But what if they weren’t there?As you drive around, count the number of bridges and overpasses you see or use. What would you do without them? How would their absence affect your daily commute?Navigating life, we often run into obstacles and gaps of all sizes that slow us down or require us to make a complete stop. Unless we perish over the cliff, risk getting stuck in the muck, or turn around and find a new route altogether, we need something to bridge the gap.That’s where hope comes in.

Colorado Springs Easter outreach: Hope for the community

Hope is not only the belief there is a bridge large enough to traverse obstacles we encounter in life, but also the name we give the bridges we use during our travels.Preparing for our Easter outreach meal, Springs Rescue Mission started Hunger to Hope to explore how a small #ActofHope - like providing a meal - can bridge the gap and provide hope in a neighbor’s life. More than 20 local pastors and Mission employees have teamed up to offer daily encouragement straight to your inbox from now to Easter Sunday.These past week’s 40 Days of Hope encouragements were exceptionally helpful. Here’s a recap:

• No matter how big the gap, there is a bridge large enough and robust enough to get you to the other side
• However long the bridge, the length of the journey that lies ahead of you is always far greater
• Some bridges are costly to construct but continuing your journey is priceless
• Your trip is worth traveling, no matter how many bridges it takes.
• Bridges create community, unlike walls, and cover the gaps that separate you and your neighbor
• Bridges ultimately change the landscape of your life and the way you traverse it

Where does your hope come from?

Think about the bridges you’ve used to navigate the obstacles in your life. Who put them there? Odds are most of them weren’t constructed by you. Your travels led you to the gap, but someone else built the bridge across. Maybe it was a family member, a close friend, or a complete stranger. Someone had to intentionally provide you with hope so that you could carry on with your journey.We all need bridge builders and hope from time to time.In the spirit of Easter, a neighbor has given us $56,000 to provide hope for our neighbors struggling with homelessness, addiction, and poverty. What a great blessing and bridge to hope! When asked how we could ever thank them for their generosity, their response was essentially “Build it wider.”

Meet the challenge and give twice as many neighbors hope

When $1.97 is all it takes to transform Hunger to Hope, $56,000 is going to provide a lot of hope. But what if the community of Colorado Springs doubles it before Easter? What if we can build the bridge twice as wide? In meals alone that would cover more than half of the 100,000 meals, we served during this past year. That would be an amazing accomplishment, but more importantly, that would bridge significant gaps and allow hundreds of valuable journeys to continue.Every #ActofHope builds a bridge. Every bridge continues a worthwhile journey. Please help us turn Hunger to Hope and give today!