We are so blessed to live in America. Yes, there is great division. And there are challenges that we face day to day. Have you ever thought about how we get so wrapped around political events and claim that it is so bad that Christ’s return must be immanent? Thankfully, most of us do not have to face the very real possibility of actually being beheaded or starving to death. Frankly, our condition in America is not nearly as desperate as those, say, in Afghanistan. What would happen if we were experiencing these atrocities and yet no rapture removed us? Would you lose faith? In Ghana, our ministry had an experience recently that brought life and death into very clear focus.
Pastor William Agbeti reports, “As a young and small ministry, our gallant volunteers have always been at the forefront of epidemics and pandemics! When Ebola broke out, our volunteers were out there in underserved rural communities, distributing potable “Veronica” buckets with locally made water filtration systems. These allowed users to have clean water for drinking and hand washing! Back then, we didn’t think of giving our system a name, or else we would have been credited with the invention of a much better brand of the now famous “Veronica” bucket! With the onset of COVID-19 in early 2020, our volunteers where again at the forefronts helping with hot meals and packaged foodstuffs for needy rural children and their families.
“We go to homes and places the arms of government don’t reach. In the developments of the above epidemics and pandemics, we have realized that there is one other “social illness”, that has always been there and which is not much talked about, but has always been a killer too. Here, we are talking about hunger! Like AIDS, Ebola and Covid-19, hunger is also real and it kills. We were faced with this reality of life on our weekly foodstuffs distribution on August 13. Before we were able to arrive at the house of one of our female beneficiaries, our volunteers were informed she had passed on! We do not officially know what actually killed her, but granting that she was desperately awaiting food assistance from us, one can safely deduce that hunger was a cause of her death.
“On another distribution program a few weeks back, a beneficiary stated that she could have died if we did not bring her food aid! These two cases, together with the service of our volunteers and the goodwill of donors, remind us of two scriptures: The first is Psalm 9.18: “For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.” The second is Proverbs 13.12: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a wish fulfilled is a tree of life.” One key lesson we have learned about hunger: Hunger does not wait! Let’s all do our best to help the hungry in a timely manner, so we can meaningfully impact this reality of life.” When you pray and act, you bring the life of Christ to others.
