As one of my Lenten disciplines this year I have been fasting on Wednesdays until our TOW dinner of soup and bread together in the evening. It is remarkable how that simple act brings to mind the Lenten season and compassion for our neighbors and needs throughout the day. We are used to eating when we want to eat without concern about whether we will have enough or anything at all to eat. Most of us do not have to battle hunger each day, if ever. This act of fasting on Wednesdays has offered me a glimpse, nothing more, of what so much of the world experiences day to day and hour by hour.
In Gaza right now the United Nations is concerned about mass starvation as people displaced from their homes by the war have access to little or no food. In many other parts of the world, climate change has destroyed crops through drought, floods, or storms that have left whole populations food insecure. Within some of our cities, there are food deserts where no healthy food is available. Significant numbers of children in our community receive free lunches that are their best, or perhaps only, meal of the day. All of which is to say that we take for granted our daily bread while so many other folks go hungry. Fasting one day a week has brought that reality to my consciousness in a very visceral way!
Here at Covenant, we try to meet the needs of hungry folks in our community in various ways. Teams cook and serve meals at Trinity Soup Kitchen each month. We deliver food from the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank to Hispanic families. Each month we collect a Four Cents Per Meal offering and food for the Verona Food Pantry. In our annual budget, we support Meals on Wheels, Valley Mission, SCS Nutrition Program, Jones Garden, Verona Food Pantry, Project Grows, SACRA, and our Hispanic food distribution. We are trying to make a difference where we are with what we have, and while it may seem like just a drop in an ocean of hunger, to those we help it makes a huge difference!
As you sit down to your next meal or grab a snack on the run, pause to consider two things: gratitude to God for what you have and a commitment to do what you can to feed someone else down the street, across the county, or around the world. For as Jesus reminds us: it is in serving them that we serve him!
— John Peterson
