With the local economy in shambles—including a 17 percent unemployment rate—even the ever-popular Starbucks restaurant closed its doors. Yet the Rising Sun Café, owned by John and Lisa Callea, continues to buck the trend.
Within a year of his conversion John arrived in Florida in 2005. He was penniless and divorced, but he remembered a message the Lord gave him in 2001: “The church is broken. It’s become a business and has forgotten Me. I will build My church in the marketplace.”
John says of his restaurant: “This is becoming the church. Many pastors and people just show up for fellowship, and God’s church is flowing out from here.”
The resources are scarce, but never the blessings. The Calleas have helped many through Love Your Neighbor, a ministry they founded that feeds the needy, and from which most of their kitchen staff has come. Through the ministry, Bob—who was an atheist, suffered from leukemia and was considering suicide—received prayer. Bob then heard a voice say, “I’m not done with you yet,” and he was soon healed. He became a believer as a result.
Afsan (not her real name), a Muslim excommunicated for becoming a Christian, had stage 4 breast cancer when she came to the café in secret after it was closed for business. A Bible study group that was meeting there prayed for her, and she was healed.
John says true Christianity is weaving itself into the fabric of life at the Rising Sun Café. Denominational walls are dissolving, and a network is forming to care for people in real and tangible ways. Their focus, according to John: to build true, biblical and Christian community.
