Hungry Much?

Thursday, January 06, 2011
Hungry Much? I have some numbers I want you to remember, and I’ll explain their significance in just a moment to you. The numbers are 8,000, 1, 10, 30, and 360. These are all important numbers to commit to your mind, but even more so to your heart. These are numbers that don’t just represent numbers themselves, they’re people. Please allow me to explain.
8,000 – that’s the number of children under the age of 5 that die each day from hunger related, preventable causes. 8,000 – that’s a small town in Arkansas! 1 every 10 seconds. Do me a favor and take just a moment to count to 10 seconds…a child just died from hunger related, preventable causes…10 more seconds…there’s another preventable death. That’s startling, isn’t it? Heartbreaking really. But it’s reality for 1 in 6 people on this earth that are dealing with the very real life of hunger.
Last night we began a journey with our students at Victory that will ultimately culminate with a Famine Weekend on February 25th – 26th. We challenged them to not only see the need, as hopefully we have just now, but to take the next step and begin to do something about it. For far too long the Church at large has seen the need. I’m not so idealistic as to believe that we have missed it, and that’s why we haven’t done more. No, I believe it’s right in front of us, we’ve just chosen to look away.
For far too long we’ve had the idea that “The Church isn’t a welfare program.” This is a statement I actually heard a man say growing up, and it breaks my heart all over every time I think about it. The rest of his statement was, “…so let them go to the Salvation Army.” Well, he was sadly mistaken, actually. All throughout the Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, God’s desire is for His people to have compassion on those in need. And true compassion doesn’t just say how bad we feel for people’s plight – it MAKES us get up and help them. This generation gets it. It’s time that the Church stopped just talking about caring and compassion. By feeding someone’s temporal hunger, we can then give them the greatest gift ever and share the Gospel that will quench their eternal spiritual hunger too. Now enter World Vision.
$30 – that’s all it takes to feed and care for a child for a month through World Vision, the Christian organization we’re working with to accomplish our goal of fighting hunger through our 30 Hour Famine event. World Vision uses these funds to not only feed that one child, but they set up shop in villages and teach the people how to farm and raise cattle, in order to be able to care for themselves long term. And they bring the Gospel with them when they go into these areas.
$360 – that’s what it takes to feed a child for an entire year. This is the goal I’ve set as a personal fundraising challenge. I want to work, make a little sacrifice, and insure that a child is cared for throughout 2011. Not because I have to – but because I choose to.
The bottom line: people are hurting, and there are enough resources on this planet to meet every need there is. We just have to step up, Church, and make it happen. Will you join me in fighting hunger? Will you join me in putting my money where my mouth is and living compassion? Will you join me in my journey to Love Hungry? (Email me if you’d like to donate to the Real Life 30 Hour Famine cause – pastorblakeman@yahoo.com.)


That’s just a thought, and I welcome yours.
Until next time,
blake

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