Dusty Breeding nourishes body and soul while building bread ovens for the hungry in Africa.
Dusty Breeding was known among friends for his cooking talent when one asked him to spend 10 weeks in Africa baking for small communities in Uganda and Kenya. This was in the summer of 2006, and by the time he returned to the United States an idea had formed in his mind. He decided to found a nonprofit, bread-baking organization called Lifebread.
"The name comes from John 6:35 in the New Testament, when Jesus says, ‘I am the bread of life,'" says Breeding. "We took that name because of the implications of Jesus explaining that the important thing is to be spiritually sustained as well as physically. We provide physical bread, but the whole purpose is to convey our message and show our love to all."
The nonprofit takes American students to churches and church-run orphanages in Uganda and Kenya, where they build low-cost, high-capacity ovens that can provide bread to scores of hungry people at any given time. They also teach the local community how to effectively use the ovens and provide vocational opportunities by way of managing the facility once Lifebread representatives have gone. The bakery manager of Lifebread's oven in Nairobi, for example, is a former street kid who now has been given the chance to run a business, feed his peers, and build a new life.
So far Lifebread has built four large, traditional ovens—three in Uganda and one in Kenya—and Breeding's many plans for the organization include expanding the work to other third-world nations and doing their part to sustain the earth by building solar-powered ovens. In the meantime, he travels across the U.S., Europe, and Africa to fundraise, preach, and raise awareness about the organization.
A man of deep personal faith, Breeding cites Lifebread as a chance to convey his message about Christ's love through a loving action of service. "I'm not church planting here, but instead I'm really trying to connect with a community," he explains. He marvels at the overwhelming reaction of such communities. "Some of these kids—they've never even eaten bread before. To see their faces light up when they taste a warm roll, fresh out of the oven is unbelievable."
