God Sighting: Baking for Barnabas

“I love to serve, but I don’t always have the time to go someplace to volunteer. But I can do this on my own time and pace at home.”

Sheridan member Samantha McBride loves to bake and she loves to share. The two come together in her ministry that’s centered around the quart jars of potato flake sourdough bread starter in her refrigerator.

Samantha received the starter from her stepmother 30 years ago. It’s sweeter than traditional flour-and-water sourdough starter and less tangy. Her family enjoyed the bread, hot rolls, and cinnamon rolls she made with it, and she shared her surplus with her neighbors and community. During the pandemic, she discovered recipes for potato starter brownies, cake, cookies, tortillas, noodles, pizza crust, and English muffins. She also learned how to adapt traditional sourdough recipes to her potato starter.

After Samantha and husband Bryce joined Sheridan in 2022, she heard about Barnabas Community and began donating bread and cinnamon rolls to Barnabas. She bakes and freezes bread and rolls for about four weeks to provide enough once a month to feed 150- some Barnabas guests. When the Barnabas community requested cookies, she and her starter were up to the challenge. She also uses some of her favorite cookie recipes. And when Barnabas director Dwight Thiemann suggested kolaches, Samantha responded with 180 kolaches in five different flavors.

She feeds the starter in the evening, stirs it in the morning, and if she’s baking that day, she stirs up a batch of dough and leaves it to rise all day. When evening comes, she shapes the dough into rolls or bread and lets it rise a couple more hours before baking. She enjoys working with the dough, its pleasant aroma, and the peace she feels while she shapes the loaves, rolls, or cookies.

“I like to share it (her baking bounty) wherever I can. I want to be a blessing to others. I love to serve, but I don’t always have the time to go someplace to volunteer. But I can do this on my own time and pace at home,” she says about her ministry.

After stewarding the starter for 30 years and sharing it abundantly, Samantha wants it to keep going and giving. Her daughter-in-law will continue the tradition.

By Cheryl Stubbendieck