More than navy beans and lentils

“You would think they would want more variety than just navy beans and lentils,” one woman commented as they were dropping off box for the Iraqi food relief.

The volunteer receiving the food smiled, having thought and heard the same comment several times already. “When you consider their options, either beans or starving, beans probably look pretty good,” she replied.

As a collection drop-off point for east Texas, our church had hoped to receive up to 650 boxes. In the end, about 350 came in here and more than 2500 boxes were donated state-wide.

Each box of food ended up costing in Texas between $43 and $50, lower than the nation-wide figure of $59 reported by the International Mission Board. That’s more than a $100,000 investment that churches have put into the project, not including the pallets donated, the trucks rented, the stickers printed with John 1:17 written in Arabic, and the banners made by the state convention.

It also doesn’t include the 188,000 pounds of food which have been hoisted onto trailers heading for Iraq or the hours of donated time by volunteers buying, transporting, loading, counting and, ultimately, distributing the food once it arrives in Iraq in about three months.

But consider the relatively small cost to feed an Iraqi family. Think about the vast need in extreme poverty brought on by a selfishly decadent dictator, impoverishing world-wide sanctions for the past 11 years, and then the tragic ravages of a brief but intense war. Most of all, realize the tiniest window of opportunity to minister in the name of Christ before another Islamic regime governs in Iraq.

When you consider all of these things, the really amazing aspect is not how many people gave, but how many more did not contribute to this unique missionary effort. We in United States truly cannot comprehend people living off a $43 box of food for a month. Many of us don’t hesitate at all to spend $2 for a soft drink or tea with a meal in a restaurant. A family of five can easily spend in one meal what an Iraqi family could live on for a month.

I recently dined in a Dallas with a small group of people at an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The cost was at least $22 a person and the result was most of us literally committed the sin of gluttony, with me being the chief of all sinners that night. We ate until we could not have possibly eaten another bite. In one meal, my wife and I spent an amount which would feed a family living in a mud house for an entire month.

Looking at our grocery bill, let alone our dining out budget, I have suggested, to no favorable response, that our family of six ought to try living off such a box for a month. (And if the truth be known, I’d probably complain the loudest after a few days of the diet).

Several summers ago, I lived for a week with a family in Mexico. There were no trips out to restaurants for this family. Their meals were simple but extremely routine. Early in the morning, the matriarch of the family would make the tortillas, eggs and coffee, the same meal the family ate every day, week in, week out. Lunch and dinner was basically the same. But even this simple, mundane meal would be the envy of our world’s most hunger-stricken population.

To identify with world hunger, the least we as Americans and certainly as Christians could do is to fast at least one day a month and give the money we would have spent on ourselves to others who don’t have that luxury. If health prevents you from totally abstaining from food, take a fast from eating out and instead eat frugally and set aside the proceeds to feed those truly in need.

In so doing, we’ve done it to Jesus Christ Himself.

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