Editor’s note: Oct. 11 is World Hunger Sunday for Southern Baptist churches across North America. Since 1974, Southern Baptists have fought the problem of hunger through their World Hunger Fund. One hundred percent of every dollar given to the fund is used to provide food to undernourished people all over the world – 80 percent through the International Mission Board and 20 percent through the North American Mission Board. For more information on the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, including resources for promotion of World Hunger Sunday in your church, go to www.namb.net/hunger.
As thousands of families across America gather around their dinner tables tonight, bow their heads and thank God for the meal they’re about to receive, a Mexican family will be sending their children to bed hungry.
That family, however, does not live in an impoverished town south of the border. They live in New Mexico, where nearly 16 percent of the population faces food insecurity; they don’t know where their next meal will come from. According to North American Mission Board missionary Carl Russell, New Mexico has the highest food insecurity rate in the nation – higher, in fact, than some countries in Latin America, where the food insecurity rate is 11 percent.
“Our office provides financial support to nine food service ministries in the association,” said Russell, ministry evangelism coordinator for the Central Baptist Association in Albuquerque. “The ministries we assisted last year fed approximately 150,000 people. That may sound like a lot, but it was just a drop in the bucket.”
Russell uses money provided by the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund to support ministries like the food bank at First Baptist Church in Bernalillo, N.M., and Noon Day, a ministry where Albuquerque’s homeless and near-homeless can find a nourishing meal and other basic provisions.
First Baptist Bernalillo, located about 18 miles north of Albuquerque, gives away between 50 and 70 bags of food every Tuesday.
“This is a beautiful and wonderful ministry,” said Ora Coree, director of the church’s Spanish ministry. “We are a small congregation and our church is in need of some repairs, but we prefer to see our money going to feed, to clothe and to teach those who are in need.”
In addition to stocking its own food bank, First Baptist Bernalillo also provides food to Steamboat Lake Navajo Ministries and Joshua’s Vineyard, an organization that feeds the homeless in parks throughout Albuquerque. “We serve the needy and the people who are doing God’s work,” Coree said.
Noon Day Ministries, started by a Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in Albuquerque, serves 5,000 meals per month. Noon Day director Danny Whatley has seen the number of people being fed climb as the economy has declined. Noon Day fed 700 more people in June 2009 than in June 2008.
One of the hardest things to see is the increased number of families with children, Whatley said. Of the 300 people who attend meals and services each day, about 20 are kids. Roadrunner, another local food bank, reports that one in four New Mexican children suffer from food insecurity.
“There’s often a disconnect when people think of ‘world hunger,’?” Whatley said. “They think of it as a faraway issue, but there is a great need right here at home. We see it every day – the need is growing. The numbers are going up, but the donation dollars are going down.” – NAMB
Key facts and figures about hunger in the United States:
? 36.2 million Americans – that’s 11.1 percent of American households – suffer from food insecurity, meaning their access to enough food is limited by a lack of money and other resources.
? 17.5 percent of all rural households with children are food insecure (low food security and very low food security), estimated at more than 1 million children.
? 30.2 percent of households with children, headed by single women are food insecure.
? Emergency food assistance plays a vital role in the lives of low-income families. In 2002, more than half of the non-elderly families who accessed a food pantry at least once during the year had children under the age of 18.
? In 2007, 3.9 million of all U.S. households (3.4 percent) accessed emergency food from a food pantry one or more times.
? In 2008, Southern Baptist hunger ministries fed more than 5 million meals to the hungry in North America.
? Missionaries and volunteers shared the gospel more than 785,000 times because of the opportunities provided through domestic hunger ministries.
? More than 36,000 professions of faith and 5,763 baptisms were reported in 2008 as a result of these hunger ministries.
Sources: www.namb.net, www.feedingamerica.org, Urban Institute, Many Families Turn to Food Pantries for Help, November 2003; Household Food Security in the United States, 2007.