About this Devotional
Bread of Blessing invites you to step into the humble kitchen of Jean Baptista, a former humanitarian worker turned home baker. These nine short devotional reflections are inspired by the Beatitudes — the opening words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jean draws deeply on his own experiences of serving in some of the world’s most broken places and now, through the simple daily work of baking, discovers the same truths rising in new and fragrant ways.
Each devotion pairs a traditional European bread or pastry making with one Beatitude, exploring how the gentle work of dough, yeast, and patient hands reveals a glimpse of God’s heavenly Kingdom here on earth. These words of Jesus, our friend Jean finds, are alive — nourishing the spirit just as freshly baked bread nourishes the body. This is one devotion(meditation) a week,
About the character in our stories (devotions)
Jean Baptista grew up in a vibrant but poor suburb outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the kind of place where humour and songs can be heard in humble houses despite all the problems and the poverty of everyday life. Jean grew up following the guidance of the surrounding neighbourhoods through connecting with the community he lived in and the importance of resilience. He dedicated several decades of his life to humanitarian activities in war-torn regions and disaster-affected societies well beyond his reach. The world changed and so did the priorities of governments, the funding went away, and the governments were no longer interested in causes which he and many others like him had once dedicated their lives to.
Jean is unable to work in his profession, and thus he goes back to his neighbourhood with a sense of lack of a purpose. He discovered surprise healing and hope in his own oven, hot and cooking bread, and pastries that now reminded him of the mercy, justice and grace he had attempted to bring in his humanitarian activities.
In this devotional series, Jean tells how the words of God are like good bread in that they continue to nourish the soul of the hungry one and that is as certain as the leaven in the dough.
