World Hunger Day offers opportunity
- Oct 8, 2008 - comment
On Oct. 12, Southern Baptists will observe World Hunger Sunday and congregations across the United States will collect offerings for the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund.
Since its inception in 1974, Southern Baptists have given $230,877,650 through the fund. In 2007, Southern Baptists gave more than $5.5 million. In the first six months of 2008, $2.3 million had been received.
Hunger needs continue to be overwhelming around the globe, across the United States and even in Arkansas. Baptists have a system in place to meet such needs. You can be assured your gifts to the fund go to meet real needs, because administrative costs are covered by the Cooperative Program.
Here’s some of what Baptist hunger funds have accomplished recently.
As Russian tanks pulled back from a ridge in Georgia, a team of Texas Baptist volunteers moved into Gori, a key city in the Black Sea country, to set up a feeding operation for thousands of families displaced from their homes by fighting. Now those volunteers have turned the operation over to teams from Kentucky and Oklahoma after serving almost 14,000 hot meals to people who had nothing else to eat.
While they go, such teams offer other kinds of ministry and share the gospel.
“One boy about 12 years old or so came by. His house had been bombed and he was crying. Our ministry partner from Tblisi was able to console him,” said Texas team leader Larry Blanchard. “People would come to us, put their hands over their hearts and bow as their way of thanking us.”
In Mali, West Africa, recently, South Carolina Baptists used Baptist World Hunger Funds to send 500 tons of grain to help stave off starvation for about 31,000 people.
Mali, about twice the size of Texas, is one of the poorest nations on the planet. In fact, the United Nations reports about one-third of Malian children are malnourished. Granaries stand empty.
When asked what his family has been eating, a man plucks a green leaf from a nearby tree.
“It tastes very bad,” he admits, “but it keeps you alive.”
“When Christians come to work in a place, we can’t close our eyes to this hardship,” said Steven Roach, an International Mission Board worker.
Four million Bambara people live throughout West Africa, and more than 99 percent are not Christians.
“We’ve been working in this particular area for about 18 months now,” Roach said. “Dozens of Christians are now meeting regularly for church where there were none before.”
Roach hopes this distribution of grain will show the Bambara the compassion of Christ as it helps them make it to the next harvest.
And in the United States, with unemployment and consumer food prices rising, gasoline costs at near-record levels and the possibility of more job layoffs looming on the horizon, the 1,500 domestic hunger ministries that receive support from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund are busier than ever.
Baptist hunger ministries here in Arkansas continue to meet needs and share Christ (See story on page 6).
While 80 percent of the World Hunger Fund is earmarked for international hunger, the remaining 20 percent is dedicated to feed the hungry of North America, directed by the North American Mission Board (NAMB).
About 3.5 million meals were served to North America’s hungry in 2007, and as a result 35,000 professions of faith were recorded throughout the continent. Because of careful management and low overhead, the cost of a meal at a Southern Baptist hunger ministry averages about 40 cents, according to Sandy Wood, hunger ministry specialist on NAMB’s servant and ministry evangelism team.
More than 67,000 volunteers assisted at hunger ministry sites throughout the United States in 2007, Wood said. The gospel was shared with more than 580,000 visitors to SBC hunger ministries.
For more information on the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, visit worldhungerfund.com.
This article is reprinted from the October 2, 2008, issue of the Arkansas Baptist News, the newsjournal of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Further Learning
Learn more about: Citizenship, Hunger/Homelessness,