Do you have any idea of the enormity of the hunger problem in our world?
Did you realize that more people will, because of lack of food, skip at least one meal today than will eat three square meals?
What about the kids that die, DIE, lose their lives because they haven’t had enough food to eat for so long that their bodies simply can’t go on any longer? Did you know that happens to 18,000 kids every day?
And do you know what’s so, so sad about that?
For the last 15 years, there has been enough food produced to feed every mouth on this planet three meals every. single. day.
There is enough food food produced for every man, woman, and child to eat 2800 calories/day. Everyday.
And yet today, more people than ever before are starving. Over 1 billion people go to bed hungry every night.
And that number is…
RISING.
I am so incredibly grateful for organizations like Feed My Starving Children, which partners with local churches to package food to be shipped to over 70 countries around the world. And along with that food comes the life-saving message that Jesus loves them and gave His perfect life as the atonement for their sins. Y’all, that’s a good word to people who feel like the world has passed them by. Many of them have never heard that the same God who created the universe loves them and CARES. He cares that they aren’t getting enough food to eat. And He has mobilized His church to offer relief.
The way FMSC works is this: A local church contacts them to arrange a mobile packing project. The church pays for the food. Meals cost 24 cents each. Our church’s goal was to pack 500,000 over the course of 4 days, so we sent them a check for roughly $125,000 to cover the cost of food. The church arranges a schedule of volunteers to unload trucks, sort, package, and ship food so that FMSC can get it to the hungry. We obviously had hundreds of volunteers to pack that many meals. These sweet fourth grade girls were ready to take on their shift!
Each bag is made up of chicken, veggies, soy, and rice. The chicken is actually a chicken-flavored, vitamin and mineral filled powder, formulated by food researchers to meet the special dietary needs of a child who is currently in a state of starvation. The veggies are dried carrots and potatoes. The soy provides protein, which these kids don’t usually get AT ALL. And the rice is a good starchy filler, universally recognized, that helps little hungry bellies feel FULL. Most of us can’t imagine why we’d want to include a “filler”, but when a child has felt so empty and hungry for so long, having a satisfied feeling is a luxury that they are given with the rice.
Volunteers spend the bulk of their time packaging food. Here’s what a food pack looks like:
Each food bag contains six one-cup meals, and each box holds 36 bags. All in all, our church packaged 545,500 meals, which is enough to feed 1,494 children for an entire year!!!!!! And our big God let US be a part of that.
Feed My Starving Children is an event that our church has participated in for the last two years. It is a fantastic missions event for families to participate in together. Quite often, it is hard to find ministry opportunities for the entire family because let’s face it – real ministry can be messy and it’s not always easy or even safe to let kids participate. But this event is one that we always look forward to. I wish we could do it on an ongoing basis!
These girls sure did love being the hands and feet of Christ to some hungry kids! If you’d like to support Feed My Starving Children by donating or arranging for a MobilePack at your church, please contact them through their website.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (Matthew 25:35-36)
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