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US church feeds India’s starving stomachs and souls

By Barb Christing

Special correspondent for ASSIST News Service

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army once said, “You can’t preach to a man with an empty stomach, however nothing says you can’t preach to him while you feed him.”

Chronic hunger eats at your soul. When you expend all of your energy searching for food to survive today, you don’t have the energy to learn about your place in eternity.

This is a truth Whittier Area Community Church (WACC) is facing head on.

“India contains one quarter of the world’s hungry,” states Bill Ankerberg, WACC’s Senior Pastor. “Every day thousands of people, many of them children, die from hunger-related causes. Most of them die without knowing the Lord.” And for the people of WACC, that has got to change.

“We can’t do everything. But we can do something.” According to Sherry Coats, WACC’s Pastor of Global and Contextual Ministries, “We made a conscious decision to look past the enormity of the task and focus on the life-changing impact we can have.”

WACC’s goal is to fill a shipping container with 285,000 nutritious meals and send it to India’s eastern port of Vishakhapatnam, also known as Visag. C.V. Vadavana (CV), one of WACC’s sponsored missionaries, and a native of India, will meet the food in Visag and distribute it to two needy communities.

The first cluster of villages which will receive the food lies 100 miles north of Visag, in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Over the past two decades CV has planted over 50 churches and a seminary in this area. “This food will show them in a tangible way, God’s love for them.” CV is excited to be able to share the generosity of the people of WACC with the hungry people he works with every day in India. “It will be like manna from heaven for them. It will bring to life the message of love they have been hearing in their churches. It will ignite their faith and this sort of enlightened gratitude is contagious.”

The second area where CV will distribute the food is in the northern state of Assam. A series of refugee camps has become home to over 350,000 people of the displaced Reang Tribe. These people were forced from their land by a more powerful tribe and had their homes burned to the ground. Conditions in the camps are primitive, with no electricity, no running water, no medical facilities, no schools and no churches.

The Reangs are animists by tradition, but now they are receptive to the Gospel. CV has been working to establish churches in the camps for the past several years. The food provided by WACC will give him a foot in the door of the hearts of the people. “Christ multiplied loaves and fishes in the past. We are trusting Him to do it again.” CV’s prayer is that God will transform the food into “a rich harvest of souls.”

It all starts in Whittier, CA in WACC’s Sports Center. On Wednesday, December 30th, over 800 volunteers will gather to measure, mix and seal packets of food. Men, women and children will be working shoulder to shoulder for two-hour shifts from 9 am to 9 pm. Entire families are coming. Girl Guide and Boy Scout troops are coming. High school Youth Club members are coming. “Everyone wants to be a part of this exciting and meaningful event,” exclaims Sherry Coats. “People are lining up to help. I’m afraid we will be turning people away soon.”

By 9 pm on December 30th the doors will be closing on a shipping container bound for India. Inside will be 1,320 boxes of food, each of which will feed a family of six for a month. Their stomachs will be filled with a nutritious blend of rice, soy protein, 21 essential vitamins and minerals and dehydrated vegetables. Their hearts will be overflowing with the knowledge that through a church on the other side of the world, God showed them His love.

“We are hoping this is the tip of the iceberg,” smiles Ramon Pastrano, President of Impact Lives. “Through our relationship with WACC and the larger Converge Worldwide family of churches, we hope to ship 5 million meals to hungry nations around the world.” WACC and Converge Worldwide have partnered with Impact Lives to become an active agent in positive change. Ankerberg adds, “There is enough food to feed everyone in the world. It’s our job to get it to them. God will accept nothing less.”

To get the job done WACC needs to raise $72,000. This money will pay for the raw ingredients for 285,000 meals and get them shipped to India. That’s only 25 cents per meal; a bargain in any economy. WACC is planning on taking one offering on Christmas Eve. It is a church known for the generosity of its members and the vision of its leaders. “We never like to limit God. We’ve committed to filling one shipping container. He may have other plans,” chuckles Pastor Ankerberg. “Our God is a God of surprises. And we whole-heartedly believe He has plans to fill the starving stomachs and souls of His people in India.”

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TAGS: USA Whittier Area Community Church starving children Salvation Army hunger missionaries evangelism

[12/05/2009]

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