Where are the Churches? One Billion Hungry!

According to a recent Reuters article that ran in the New York Times:

“High food prices have pushed another 105 million people into hunger in the first half of 2009, the leader of the United Nations World Food Program said on Friday in Rome. She said the total number of hungry people around the world was now more than one billion. At a meeting of the Group of 8’s development ministers, Josette Sheeran, the food program’s executive director, said the world faced a “human catastrophe.” “This year, we are clocking in, on average, four million new hungry people a week — urgently hungry,” Ms. Sheeran said. The agency needs $6.4 billion this year for food aid, she said, but donors’ contributions have fallen far behind that level. The agency had around $1.5 billion at the end of last week. Ms. Sheeran said it had had to cut food aid rations and shut down some operations in eastern Africa and North Korea because of the credit crunch.”

In the midst of such a crisis, the question is WHERE IS THE CHURCH?

The answer: often on the frontlines!  Can we do more? Yes.  Must we do more? Yes.  But the truth is that the local church is leading the charge in the world today against hunger, poverty, illness and illiteracy.

Here are some examples:

• Feed Panama Program
• Manchester Area Conference of Churches
• Willow Creek raises $2 million to fight hunger
• The Global PEACE Plan
• Volunteer Army Attacks Hunger

The list could go on and on…