It’s 7.30am on Wednesday morning, and on the ground floor of an empty car park in Kingswood, Penrith, there’s a barbecue going on. More than 40 people mill around on the asphalt in an out-of-the-way corner of the multi-story facility: some unpacking crates of oranges and milk cartons from a white van, others serving coffee and bacon and egg rolls to those who have started to arrive on foot through all sides of the concrete block. Others help themselves to bowls of cereal, standing around greeting each other like old pals.

It’s almost impossible to tell who is serving and who is being served. Entirely impossible to tell whom among this crowd spent the night on the street. Everyone knows everyone, no one stands on their own.

This is Christ Mission Possible. Or at least, one small part of what is a giant operation now going on in western Sydney. The emergency food and crisis accommodation organisation has up to 150 volunteers in its food solutions programs alone. They serve over 30,000 hot meals a year, and have been running the food service for seven years. This Wednesday morning alone, they expect to serve close to 100.

“We’re here Monday, Wednesday and Friday serving brekkie, but Wednesday’s are our busiest, because we’ve got groceries to give out too,” says Pastor Marty Beckett, CEO of Christ Mission Possible and senior pastor at Pentecostal congregation ‘Church of the Rock’.

Marty says he’s seen a huge increase in the number of people coming for hot meals at breakfast time and for the dinners the organisation puts on around western Sydney each week.

Volunteers spend hours packing up donated food to hand out at weekly Christ Mission Possible dinners in St Mary’s. This is just one of many food depots, in the garage of a volunteer’s home.

“People are paying higher rents, and the NewStart allowance just isn’t enough for them to live off. It’s tough for a lot of people. We see a lot of families: people with mortgage stress, people who can’t pay their electricity bills. They’re not all homeless. But they’re doing it really tough.”

Marty points out those in the breakfast queue who are regulars at these meals. One of them is Andrew.

“Andrew came to us homeless,” says Marty. “But he’s a success story. Two years on, he’s working for us.”

Andrew talks reservedly about his past. He grew up in Manly, on Sydney’s northern beaches before working in sales for a multinational company. He describes his lifestyle as “excessive- too much alcohol, gambling, stuff like that.”

But in 2011 Andrew had a string of events that pushed his life in a very different direction. His Dad passed away, he broke up with his long-term girlfriend, his relationship with his Mum and brother broke down and he lost his job.

“In December 2011, I pretty much just packed up and left. At the time, I didn’t realise my behavior was to blame for my situation. I’d win a contract at work and go out partying for days on end. I lost that job, and had problems with the people around me. I blamed everyone but myself. It was drinking, and there was a pride factor too.

“I’d gone from living the corporate lifestyle to effectively being homeless in a really short space of time. I left Manly, stayed in Katoomba with a friend for a couple of weeks. And then I ended up in Penrith at a Centrelink office right around Christmas. No friends, no family, in a new area. Centrelink took time to process you through the system. I didn’t have any money.

“I was referred to Christ Mission Possible, placed in their temporary accommodation.” CMP has emergency housing properties in St Mary’s in Sydney’s west, and on the south coast. They also have permanent housing arrangements, providing rental accommodation at affordable prices for those struggling to make ends meet.

It was in temporary accommodation that Andrew found out about Church of the Rock, the church behind Christ Mission Possible.

“I grew up Coptic orthodox; I went to a Catholic boys school. I’d never dreamed I’d go to a Pentecostal church. But the caretaker of the place I was staying suggested I take a look. I just went… and I felt… free. Like I could have a relationship with God, like it was a personal relationship. Just me and God. That’s what I really needed at the time.

Andrew kept going to church, building relationship with some of members who also volunteered at Christ Mission Possible, and started volunteering himself. He met pastor Marty who recognised in Andrew a business sense and a desire to turn his life around. “What I’d done in the past wasn’t working. I needed a job, they needed someone with a bit of corporate background.”

Today, Andrew is married with a two month old baby. He’s rebuilding his relationship with his family, and is now on the payroll for Christ Mission Possible, responsible for building relationships with CMP suppliers for its food programs, and overseeing the hundreds of volunteers that work for the organisation on a weekly basis.

“We rescue anywhere between 3-7 tonnes of food a week: perishable and non-perishable. We’ve established a drystock warehouse, making sure that stock is pumped out freely to those who need it. We work on grant submissions to keep our operations going. The food program costs CMP hundreds of thousands of dollars to run. My goal is to make it self-sufficient.

When ABC’s Four Corners ran a story about Christ Mission Possible’s programs, Marty and Andrew couldn’t believe their luck.

“Earlier this year,” says Marty, “I sat with my team and I said, ‘what I want to do this year is focus on getting us known to the wider and broader community’. I was thinking around Penrith, right? Local business, maybe the Chamber of Commerce. I’m thinking: ‘I’ve got to push this cause because it costs a lot to run!’ So ABC calls us a few months later, and I thought, ‘you can’t get much broader than that!’”

The response to the program which examined unemployment, homelessness and the adequacy of welfare systems in New South Wales, has been overwhelming for Marty. They’re getting calls from companies around western Sydney wanting to support the organisation.

Andrew says Christ Mission Possible is now considered the number one support service for food provision in the Penrith area.

“We don’t means test. We just give people what they need. Centrelink and other welfare agencies know that if they’ve got a client with no food in the cupboard, they can ring us and we’ll give it to them.”

Support is increasing for the organisation, and publicity has been good for Christ Mission Possible this year. Just this week, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, ran an article outlining the increasing needs of the organisation, and where to go for help. On Channel 9’s A Current Affair, Marty was depicted as a type of local saviour. In person, though, he’s humble. And realistic about what the success of such an organisation means about his local area.

“We’re the kind of service that you want to put out of business,” he tells ABC’s Four Corners. “We wish people didn’t need our help. But they need help. And it’s good we’re able to offer that.”

ABC’s Four Corners recorded a lot of the work of Christ Mission Possible that didn’t make it into their televised story in July. You can watch the extra footage, which provides a more in depth look at the scale of work this ministry is providing. Click here to view.

For more about Christ Mission Possible, click here.