World Hunger Sunday is Oct. 9, and Alabama Baptists have a long way to go to reach the $825,000 convention goal to help feed the needy, according to Joe Bob Mizzell, director of the office of Christian ethics and chaplaincy ministries for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
Although Alabama gave more to the world hunger offering than any other state last year, Mizzell said this year’s offering is down with only about $285,000 collected from January to August.
“We’ve got people in foreign countries who are literally starving to death for food,” he said. “Even in this country, there are people who are hungry. With the two hurricanes hitting our coast, it makes it that much more necessary that we give to world hunger. It would help those people.”
Each year, the Christian Life Commission helps the SBOM promote World Hunger Sunday, and Chairman Michael Terry said this year’s theme, Continue to Remember the Poor, based on Galatians 2:10 seeks to draw attention to poor and hungry people around the world.
“We have so many other competing interests for our attention and our monetary resources,” said Terry, who is also an attorney in Moulton. “The recent hurricanes are taking a lot of attention and rightly deserve our support, but in the midst of that, we don’t need to forget our traditional support of world hunger emphasis.”
Like Terry, Mizzell encourages everyone to give to the offering through his or her church.
“If you send it through your church, we sent it directly to the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and International Mission Board (IMB) and all the money gets to the place where it’s needed,” Mizzell said. “Eighty percent goes to IMB and 20 percent goes to NAMB to be used in the United States. The Cooperative Program picks up the expense of administration.”
Terry added, “I know of no better way to help than through Alabama Baptist World Hunger emphasis. It is administered by Southern Baptists, which is an organization of people I trust, and they (the recipients) are not just fed physically but they are fed spiritually.”
The SBOM lists other ways to help fight world hunger:
Support food pantries through gifts and volunteering.
Make sure your support is not seasonal. Hunger needs exist all year long.
Be sensitive to needs within your church and community.
Make benevolence ministries part of your church’s outreach to the community.
Support job training and other programs that aid single mothers and the poor.
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