"Does this mean we don't get to have breakfast?"

This past Sunday, we had a "mission moment" during our worship service. This was an opportunity for a pre-chosen member of the congregation to get up and talk about the mission in the church that has affected them. This month's mission focus is the Farmville Area Community Emergency Services (FACES) backpack program.

The testimony went something like this:
Everyone at Prince Edward County schools had begun showing up for the day when the snow overwhelmed the area. The decision was made to cancel school and send all the children home for their safety. One little girl came up to a teacher, the woman who would give our mission moment yesterday, and asked, "Does this mean we don't get to have breakfast and lunch today?"

Yikes. Did you catch that? It wasn't that she was happy to be with her friends. It wasn't that she wanted to learn something new. She was concerned because she wasn't going to get to eat. When I heard this in church my heart dropped. Right now, there are 24 children in my area who do not have enough food in the family to get them through the weekend with meals. They can only eat during the week because of subsidized programs. That's where the backpack ministry comes in. These kids are sent home with a backpack full of food on Fridays so that the family, and really the children, can survive.

Now I'm not interested in a debate around social services. I don't want to hear/read comments about "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" and working to a better situation. If you are interested in debating, fighting, or otherwise distracting the message then please take that elsewhere. I'm talking about children, little precious children of God, who do not have enough food to eat. This isn't political, this is personal.

Let's put it another way, if I were to write on this blog that we had lost our jobs and thus couldn't provide enough food for Noah, how would you react? Would you be mortified? Want to help? Bake a casserole? Well there are 24 little ones who are someone else's Noah, and that number is expected to rise. And that is just the number we know of in this community. How many more are too proud to request help? How many meet the qualification standards but don't know about the program? How many could FACES serve if given more resources? If you aren't in PE county, how many hungry children are around you right now.

We're blessed to be able to provide for my son and as it says in Genesis about Abraham, that means I'm called to be a blessing to others.What will you do to pay it forward to those around you?

Click on this to go to FACES' donation page.