By Pastor William Agbeti
From the cradle to the grave, food is the fuel and lifeline for the body! As this reality becomes more profound and turns into a matter of life and death, there is often no food amongst vulnerable groups like the aged, malnourished children, persons living with disabilities, the unemployed, the sick, widows and orphans. Viewed against this backdrop, this is the story of our journey into how the lives of some of the poorest of the poor in Ghana are impacted by food provided through your partnership with our ministry.
The Sufferings of COVID
Covid-19 shut down society and caused unprecedented widespread hunger in underserved communities. Immediately, we operated as first responders and front-line workers for the poor when massive cries of hunger started pouring in from ostracized communities. With the support of Ghana’s national Security apparatus, we were given special passes to work during curfew hours of the lockdowns. With every hot meal to satisfy growling stomachs, we prayed and acted, also giving out masks, Veronica buckets, hand wash detergents and hand sanitizers to help curb the spread of the epidemic. All in all, we placed our lives on the line as we provided hope and love to the almost unreachable places in the midst of the contagion! In 2022 alone, we served over 55,000 meals to the needy.
Quickly Adjusting to Save Lives
As word got around about our services, the pleas increased from people desperately needing food! Soon, we realized giving cooked food to the needy was good for a day, but providing foodstuffs that can last one to two weeks at a time was much better. We pivoted to sending out emergency foodstuffs packaged in our, now somewhat famous, multi-colored bags! The resulting testimonies were just heartbreaking! An elderly couple confessed that in their more than 60-years of living, no one has gifted them like our Ministry did! Not even the government! They openly shed tears!
“I thought my children and I were going to die, until help came from the Ministry! It was a big surprise! This makes us believe in God!” –A mother of four whose husband abandoned them.
Life Changing Sustainability
As testimonies poured in, we were humbled and motivated to do more! From hot meals to packaged foodstuffs, we shifted again to multiply our impact. We enlisted the help of the needy by working with them to use available land in the actual underserved communities to cultivate foodstuffs. This assists the needy to grow staple foodstuffs such as corn and tomatoes for themselves, the ministry and the marketplace. The harvested produce is then sold at wholesale prices to the ministry, which we package and give back as food aid! By so doing, the needy earn a livelihood and the vulnerable in the community get served with free foodstuffs! So far, we have three experimental farms growing corn and tomatoes.
We are working on securing a much larger farm where we would cultivate watermelons, some other fruits and raise tilapia fish! As these farms take shape, we will allocate two-thirds for free distribution and one-third to sell in organized markets! This will bring sustainable development to our operations and contribute significantly toward easing the food shortage.
Will you please join us on the next leg of this exciting journey to help our operations become sustainable and empower us to nip hunger in the bud? To the above end, we are deeply encouraged by Apostle Paul’s words in Acts 20:35: “I have showed you all things, how that so laboring you ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
