Food

This weekend, the teens at our church are going without food. Now, having a teenager myself, I know what a sacrifice this is! My 17-year-old seems to need to "feed" every hour (90 minutes if we're lucky). He can go from "full" to "starving" in a couple of minutes, it seems. So to have a church full of teens go without food, for 30 hours, is a huge thing.

But they're not just doing it as part of a new diet plan. They're doing it to be part of World Vision's 30-Hour Famine, raising money for hunger relief around the world, and raising their own awareness of what it's like to go without food. They will have many activities today to "keep their mind off" their hunger, and at 6:00 p.m. they will eat.

But I pray that, even as they eat that evening meal, they won't forget what it felt like to have the hunger pains, to be uncertain if they would be able to "make it" through the experience. Right now, there are lots of kids who are hungry, even in our own country but certainly around the world, who have no guarantee that, come 6 p.m., they will have food to eat. They don't know if they will have food to eat tomorrow, either. They don't know when the next meal will be coming.

In our own community, we're sought to respond to this problem by initiating the "Feed My Lambs" backpack program. In cooperation with the Northwest Indiana Food Bank, we've been working for three years now to partner with the local schools in providing food for kids who might not have it otherwise on the weekends. The "reason" they don't have food doesn't matter. They are in "food insufficient" households, and that's enough reason for us, as the Body of Christ, to respond. In fact, this vision came out of a Disciple Bible Study, as a teacher among us discussed the kids in her classroom who couldn't focus because they were malnourished. So "Feed My Lambs" goes a long way beyond hunger pains, because with food, a kid has a chance at a better education, which just might give him or her a brighter future. To date, in cooperation this year with several other churches and community agencies, we are feeding 192 kids every weekend. There's more to do, of course, but it's a good start.

Jesus calls us to feed the hungry (see Matthew 25:31-46). And I'm thankful for what our teens are doing this weekend. But, more than that, I pray that when the weekend is over, their example will spur us all on toward better discipleship, doing what Jesus said to do. May we find our hearts moved in compassion toward action in relieving hunger here and around the world. No child should ever go to bed hungry.

How long will we sing? How long will we pray?
How long will we write and send?
How long will we bring? How long will we stay?
How long will we make amends?

Until all are fed we cry out.
Until all on earth have bread.
Like the one who loves us each and every one
We serve until all are fed

(Words & Music by Brown, McFarland & Morris. www.untilallarefed.net)