Hunger is no respecter of persons. It plagues rural families in Alabama’s Black Belt. It stalks children living in the inner cities of the state’s metropolitan areas. It afflicts a growing number of seniors tucked away in neatly kept homes in suburbia.
Across the state almost one in five households (18.2 percent) experienced food insecurity from 2009 to 2011. That was the fourth highest rate in the nation. The failing economy continues to impact hunger. A decade ago, the percentage of Alabama households with “very low food insecurity” was 3.3 percent. Now it has more than doubled to 6.8 percent.
In 2011, 54 percent of Alabama’s public school students received free or reduced-price school lunches. Alabama ranks first among states for percentage of children living in poverty. Nationwide the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 18 million children lived in food-insecure households in 2012. That was a 15 percent increase over 2011.
The growing life expectancy of seniors has created the unintended consequence of outliving one’s financial resources. In 1935 when Social Security was adopted, the average life expectancy was 61. Now it is 77. For many seniors food stamps (now called SNAP) supplement what they are able to provide for themselves, but hunger among seniors is still one of the fastest growing social problems in the United States.
Worldwide the problem of hunger is even bleaker. According to research by the Christian organization Bread for the World, almost 21,000 people die from hunger-related causes every day. Children make up about 16,000 of these. That is one child dying from hunger every five seconds.
The World Bank estimates that the spike in food prices a few years ago together with the economic recession that continues to grip the world forced nearly 150 million people into poverty. That means today there are about 1.5 billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day. About 870 million of those live in hunger.
Such numbers may be too big to grasp but the death of a single child is heart wrenching. And it is a tragedy every time the lack of proper nutrition impairs a child’s mental development or stunts physical growth for a lifetime.
Alabama Baptists understand God’s command to feed the hungry. In Deuteronomy 15:11, Moses spoke for God when he said, “For there will never cease to be poor people in the land; that is why I am commanding you, ‘You must willingly open your hand to your afflicted and poor brothers in your land.’” Matthew 25:35–40 even ties judgment to caring for the hungry and needy.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission concludes its section on hunger by observing, “God’s Word is clear that we are to minister to the poor and needy as part of our Christian lifestyle. We must not view it in any other way.”
Alabama Baptists join with other Southern Baptists to minister to hungry and hurting people in our state, our nation and around the world by supporting the World Hunger Offering.
This year the offering has been renamed. It is being called the Global Hunger Relief Offering. A spokesman said the new name was an attempt to make the offering more appealing to younger Baptists because offering totals have been dropping despite the severe needs. That may be true nationwide, but in Alabama, World Hunger Offering totals have grown four of the last five years. In 2013 Alabama Baptists gave $809,952, or more than 10 percent of the total given by all Southern Baptists.
Regardless of the name, the guidelines for the offering remain the same. Every dollar given to Global Hunger Relief goes directly to relief efforts. No funds are taken out for administration or promotion — these are provided through the Cooperative Program, the primary giving channel for Southern Baptist missions efforts.
The offering is divided 80 percent to international projects through the International Mission Board (IMB) and 20 percent for domestic hunger relief efforts through the North American Mission Board (NAMB). NAMB in turn considers funding requests for hunger-related projects from state conventions including Alabama.
Another benefit of Baptist efforts is that relief funds are not thrown at problems. Baptist representatives are there for the long haul. Baptists hope to show the love of God through their relief efforts and hope to build relationships that will open doors for sharing what God has done for all who will believe through Jesus Christ. In addition to caring for the hungry, Baptists long to start churches that will carry on efforts to make Christian disciples.
Some of the upcoming offering will help Baptists respond to emergencies such as the current Syrian refugee crisis. Working with trusted partners, Baptists are in their second year of providing emergency food packets, hygiene kits, basic shelter materials and small amounts of medicines to these refugees.
Most of the funds help integrate hunger relief into community development. In rural China, for example, diarrhea caused by polluted drinking water contributes to the death of more than 30,000 children each year. Using funds provided by World Hunger Fund, now the Global Hunger Relief Offering, a small factory making inexpensive ceramic water filters was started in 2009 that produced 7,000 filters per year.
The results were so successful that Baptist partners now hope to enlarge the plant and increase production to more than 30,000 filters per year. Making 80,000 filters annually is a possibility. Tens of thousands of lives are being saved because Baptists helped make water filters possible.
Across the nation and around the world Baptists are helping hungry people regardless of race, gender, age or religion because hunger is no respecter of persons. Baptists are being obedient to God’s command to care for the hungry by demonstrating God’s love in meeting physical and spiritual needs.
Alabama Baptists play a key role in Global Hunger Relief when they give to this special offering scheduled Oct. 13 and when they work through their local churches and other community efforts to help the hungry and hurting who live around them.
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