"Now all glory to God, who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power working in us." Ephesians 3:20
All throughout the Bible, God gives us examples of helping the poor and feeding the hungry. In the book of Exodus, God fed his chosen people manna from heaven when they were wandering in the desert. In the New Testament, Jesus fed the multitudes with just a few loaves of bread and fish. At a wedding celebration, Jesus turned water into wine. All throughout the Bible, there are examples of God and Jesus feeding and nurturing their followers both physically and spiritually.
On Sunday, March 4, the Mission Athens team organized a congregational night of service benefiting the Full Tummy Project. The Full Tummy Project is a local organization that provides bags of food to elementary school children on Fridays to help them have enough to eat on the weekends. The program is simple, anonymous, and discreet while at the same time sustaining kids who live in poverty in our community.
Seventeen million Americans live in food insecure households, and as the economy continues to struggle, so do many local families. School children benefit from breakfast and lunch meals that are served at school, but on the weekends, many of these kids do not have enough to eat. By simply placing a small bag of pop-top ravioli, cereal, peanut butter crackers, Pop Tarts, fruit cups and juice in their backpacks on Fridays, we can make a significant difference in their ability to grow and thrive.
About a month ago, the Mission Athens team set a goal of creating 500 bags of food during our night of service to provide enough food for the Full Tummy Project to make it through the month of March, which includes extra bags of food for Spring Break. We solicited donations from the congregation and placed bins in the hallway as well as accepted monetary gifts for the program. A few weeks ago, we began to worry if we had over committed and would be able to have enough for 500 bags...we prayed fervently that God would provide.
But then, the week before the event, the donations poured in, and once again, the family of faith at Central Church of Christ blew us away. We collected food donations from co-workers as well as our church members, and we also were blessed with over $1,300 in cash donations to purchase food for the event.
On Friday, we began organizing the donations for the night of service, but we were interrupted by severe weather that once again hit our community. On Saturday, as the clouds parted and the sun shone on a clear day, we headed out to shop for food for Athens' hungry kids.
Among the volunteers that night, we were blessed to see a sweet couple who sustained major damage to their home during Friday's tornado. They are currently living in a local hotel, and when I asked them what they were doing there, they simply said, "Where else would we be? We want to help these kids." What an inspiration to see them sacrificing their time to help others even after they themselves had just weathered such a significant loss.
We had volunteers from the ages of 2 to 82 packing bags. One of our deacons set up a room for our preschoolers to help out and pack bags, too. These precious little children packed more than 30 bags for their friends who need food.
We prayed and we packed, and in about 20 minutes, all those helping hands accomplished exceedingly, abundantly beyond our expectations! God showed up at Central Church of Christ Sunday night and showed us that He is able to provide far more than we could ever hope for. We were so excited to add together the totals from our four assembly lines and announce to the group that we had packed.......
1,239 bags of food!
Thanks to God's blessings of our generous church family, the Full Tummy Project will not only have enough bags for the month of March, but we will have enough for the remainder of the school year. What a beautiful sight to behold!
