Since spring of 2020, we've been focused on health and hygiene more than ever. Indeed, disease and illness drastically impact the regions we serve together – they continue to today, and they've been ravaged by illness and lack of medicine long before COVID-19 was common vernacular.
Health is an ongoing need with a spotlight upon it in recent times. But health has partly overshadowed another ongoing issue: hunger.
When you think of hunger, an oversaturation of statistics probably comes to your mind. You already know how rampant hunger is, not only in impoverished countries, such as those we serve in East Africa or Southeast Asia, but also in your own hometown. Hunger is a global plague, ravaging the old and the young alike.
What Does Hunger Really Mean?
What does it feel like? It feels like an inescapable storm cloud of pain, fear, uncertainty, and impossible emptiness. When you’re hungry, it’s hard to see a future beyond your next meal. Hunger consumes your thoughts and drives your actions until all of the energy in your body is spent.
Have you ever tried to sleep on an empty stomach? A really empty stomach, not just skipping dinner. The pain and emptiness keep you awake, tossing and turning through the night. Your energy is too low, your mind is too exhausted to pretend it isn’t there, and there's too much pain to actually rest.
In this modern world of surplus, how is it that one in five children faces hunger every single day? It raises the question, how can we allow this to happen?
But if you’re reading this, you are one of the (special, exceptional, and rare) few with a heart full of love, worry, and God’s strength. You might ask a different question. You’ll ask instead, How can I help?
How Your Support is Helping
Our Kinship Projects are homes for orphans, places of worship, and shelters. But did you know many of them also establish feeding programs for their communities? That means they don’t only feed the orphans and widows in their homes, but they are blessed to feed hundreds of families who live nearby.
The core difficulty of battling hunger is also what makes it unique: the need never ends. All it takes is one day without a meal for hunger to put another tick in its win column.
Three meals a day for our hungry Kinship Kids, and feeding the local communities, too – that’s a lot of bellies to fill. If you find yourself wondering how to help, and praying for a way to end hunger, this is the way.
“They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the [Lord] will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Revelations 7:16-17)
Hunger is relentless, but so is your drive to eradicate it. If you feel the call to give today, please support Where Most Needed so that the places that need the most help can receive it.
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