Feeding the Poor

We see poverty everyday. It looks like rags with people wearing them. It looks like children wearing the same clothes day after day. It looks like open soars and cuts exposed to dirty water. It spews out curses, acts undisciplined and is filled with anger and threats when met with authority. One day at the beach a boy threatened to hit my children with a rock because I refused to buy him a candy bar. The occasion ended with him happily grinning as he pulled a large candy bar out of his pocket that someone had already bought him. Today, I welcome the same boy with love and hugs when he is willing to receive them. Poverty has a great need that only the love and power of Christ can fulfill, person by person. We are here to impact people with the love and power of Jesus Christ. That's why I welcome that little boy who is often so rude into my arms. It is in my arms and the arms of others, that his poverty will be stripped away and he'll be able to receive true riches. Please don't judge the little boy. Underneath the filth, he's so beautiful.

Every weekday, the poor village children come into the center and are fed for lunch. In this way, none of them will die of hunger. They are so lovely. Beyond the rags, unkind words, fights, etc. the call of God can be seen on their lives. They are fed at the front of the center because (as we learned from experience) many (NOT ALL) are less disciplined than the children cared for by Iris, and often will fight with the children who live in the center.

Feeding Program

On one of the days that I helped feed the children who live in the surrounding village, I had to do more than dish out plates of food. A 10 year old boy was trying to hit another boy with a big rock. He was disciplined by a local, but that just left him screaming and very angry. After prying another rock out of his hand, the Lord had me pick him up, and give him a father's love as I carried him around, praying and prophesying over his life. The boy calmed down and I disciplined him in wisdom and love, showing him that it was better to choose JesusElove than a rock. Another Holy Given Student loved on him also and was trying to find out about his home life, etc. This is one way ministry takes place here. Both my wife and I have been praying about greater ministry for these children. Instead of waiting for our turn to feed the children with our individual groups, we've decided to go at other times to feed them and spend more time around the children. One of us takes Amerel at least once a week because she enjoys caring for them so much.

Families of Poverty

Some of the village children find a way to come into the center cafeteria for lunch and dinner. For safety reasons most aren't supposed to be there, but they do come into the center with plastic bags to beg for food for themselves (and perhaps their family). Iris feeds children, adults and widows around here so we haven't understood why some children beg for food and others don't. One day we were saving a bunch of our beans to refry into patties (it helps having different things to eat). We met a boy in the cafEwho carried a very small plastic container (see photo) and was begging for food for himself and 4 other people in his family. How can anyone feed a family of 5 with a small container of left-overs! We both were filled with compassion and gladly dumped our beans onto the plain rice in the boys container.

Please pray with us as we ask the Lord to open our eyes to see the poor and open our hearts to have compassion on them just as the Lord has compassion on us. By poor,I don't just mean the physical, but those who are lacking spiritually and emotionally as well and for some reason or another are not depending on Christ in their time of need.Tyren