New Norfolk Church Health Club: Marissa’s Story

Written by Chanel Higgins

Following the success of our eight-week cooking classes last year, we have continued with a monthly health club. Each month, tasty plant-based recipes are demonstrated, a short informative talk is given by a health professional, and friendships are strengthened over a delicious meal. Through our church’s health programs, five adults and two children from the local community have come through the doors of our church.

More members of the community are now getting involved by sharing and demonstrating their favourite healthy recipes. Marissa, a lady from our local community who only started attending our church last year, has enthusiastically joined in and has become an entertaining recipe presenter. Last month, we held an Italian night featuring homemade vegan pizzas, vegan meatballs with wholegrain spaghetti, and more. The following was Marissa’s introduction:

“Welcome, everyone. Before I tell you what recipes I’m going to demonstrate tonight, I want to take a few moments to share my family’s health journey, because it will help you understand just how amazing it is that I’m standing here tonight doing these recipes.

“I’m not sure how much you all know about me, other than that I’m the eccentric lady who occasionally stands up here, excitedly telling you about some new healthy recipe I’ve discovered that is ACTUALLY tasty! But what many of you may not know is that you’ve come in halfway through the story. Less than two years ago, my family’s diet was what I’d call ‘token healthy’—full of bacon, copious amounts of red meat, alcohol, refined sugar, and processed treats—but always with a bit of salad or vegetables on the side. We used to joke that the definition of a salad was simply two vegetables touching!

“It was as if we thought we could eat whatever we liked, as long as we added just enough vegetables to offset the damage. We were a long, long way from a truly healthy, plant-based diet. I guess you could sum it up by saying that we knew we should eat better, but no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t seem to make lasting changes. Even after some very serious health scares, our diet remained mostly the same. We’d go on a health kick, make a few small adjustments, but within a month or so we would slip back into old habits.

“Now, I’m not here to preach a sermon, but I do want to tell you the truth about what happened in our lives that enabled us to change—dramatically and permanently. We got to know God. Over time, He convicted us to let go of certain foods, and even better, He took away our desire for them. To be completely transparent, we’re still on this health journey, continuing to put away more things as God brings them to our attention.

“Which brings me to tonight’s recipes. Given our background and what we used to eat not that long ago, I hope you can appreciate why, if you had told me two years ago that my husband would willingly ask me to make vegan meatballs, I would have laughed incredulously!”

She then encouraged anyone who wants God to change their lives to join us at church at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings.