Bread for a Broken World: A Home Baker’s Hope in Troubled Times

Bread for a Broken World: A Home Baker’s Hope in Troubled Times

It was another Saturday morning in the quaint little village of Ano Poroia (Άνω Πόρoια), situated in the Serres regional unit, with a proximity to the Bulgarian border and the Kerkini National Park, known for its stunning lake and birdlife. And there in a small cozy abode sat a pretty lady named Miriam, at the small dining table with a mug of freshly brewed coffee and a newspaper spread below staring at the grim headlines - war raging, children crying, lawmakers turning hearts to stone instead of mercy. The world felt like stale, cracked bread, hard to swallow and harder to trust.

Miriam and her husband Alfredo Papadopoulos had been living in this cozy little two-bedroom abode for three decades and more. May be ever since she married Alfredo. And Alfredo, cannot remember since when he was there, he says he grew up running around in the yard during the summers and had studied in the little village high school attached to the Greek Orthodox Church of "St. Bogoroditsa" and "St. Nicholas".

Miriam had not done much schooling as she had lost her father when she was quite young and being the eldest sibling had to extend a helping hand to her mother who was the breadwinner. But she has a fair knowledge of both Greek and English that helped her to keep pace with the local newspaper that got delivered once a week. She also knew a bit of Turkish, which she learnt owing the remnants of the Ottoman influence in her hometown. The couple were blessed with two sons who served with the Greek Red Cross and were deployed to the Refugee camps up in the North of the country.

As the boys were away, Alfredo kept himself busy with his little poultry farm and small kiosk selling milk, eggs and fresh bread in the morning times and later would spend time with his few friends playing Black gammon or Pirates of Kattan, the two famous board games. And it was Miriam, a modest home baker. Her kitchen was a small, sun-kissed place with flour smudges on every surface. The scent of yeast rising in her dough was her daily prayer, a tiny rebellion against a society crumbling with greed and violence. That is how she described the world after quietly reading the newspapers every week.

Miriam went through the news, and she saw the endless flow of pain and she cried murmuring withing, “Why is it all coming to pieces?” she thought, kneading the dough with her hands. These politicians did not have time to love and be patience to people, they did not even have the fear of God, she said to herself. But as she continued kneading the dough in quiet rhythm, a verse settled gently on her heart: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21

In fact, she was recalling the message for the previous Sunday service at church preached by Pastor Mike. Miriam paused, letting those words sink in. If the world was crumbling, she thought, then perhaps like any baker with a ruined loaf or a half-risen fruit loaf, it needed new yeast, a new rise, a new hope.

In that moment of silence, her mind began to race along like wild, thinking what would happen if folks accepted the yeast of kindness, the warmth of compassion, the salt of truth. And what compatriots, like bakers, rose daily to share fresh bread, fresh grace, and fresh courage with folks living around them. Would it not be so nice, so comforting? Well, that was Miriam thinking from the corner of her little heart, as God had blessed her with loads of kindness and a good hand at bread making.

So, she decided to do the same. Every Friday, Miriam would make additional loaves and give it to strangers-especially immigrants, people in the margins including those who had wronged her. On the parchment she made easy communications, reminding them of the love of God.

Her little gesture went on week after week. Watching her, other ladies from the church also started baking, sharing, loving, forgiving. And as Pastor Mike describes the momentum, “It was not something as big as new laws and peace treaties, but it was influential, that gave birth to hope, it was like sifting in the world, like yeast in flour.

And very soon Miriam’s kitchen transformed into a quiet sanctuary of resistance against cruelty and despair. Flour, water, salt, and scripture — these were her tools of transformation. That is how Pastor Mike describes the movement.

Where politicians had stopped being merciful, she would remember. Already peace had been snatched away by the wars, but she would offer it up in her oven. Standing in her veranda (small porch), she would tell old Dimitrios, the village headsman, “the world may be cracking up into pieces, but I will stick it together crumb by crumb, crust by crust, with the Word of God.”

And Miriam would pray as she would pull the bread from the oven, golden and fragrant, “Lord, let me be your hands in a crumbling world, let your love rise again.” And Pastor Mike would say that somehow, in the aroma of baking bread, the world did not seem quite so hopeless after all.

[The author has chosen the names of the characters to give his story more color and life. And Wandering Armenian”, would appreciate hearing back from you, please oblige the author with a few words that might help in the next story].