Here in Haiti: Center

Food is a gift. It is a privilege. I don't think I really reflected on the sheer abundance of food I've known as a norm until I went to Haiti for the first time. Growing up, our house was always full of the smells of my Mom's cooking - breakfast to give us energy to start the day, lunches packed with health, and hearty dinners shared around the family table.

But even here in the states, with all of our abundance, I have seen glimpses of want, of lack... I've spent a year volunteering weekly at a soup kitchen in Salem, Massachusetts. There I got to know the faces of people who regularly come for a warm meal to sustain and good company to ease their troubled minds.

I've been a teacher to the rural poor. I've had students who visited the food pantry in the nurse's office each Friday to get enough food to last until Monday when they could return to school and the promise of breakfast and lunch served on cafeteria trays.

These glimpses of need here in the states are troubling and challenge me to action. My time in Haiti has sent me even deeper into the mind of hunger, to see the ugliness of lack, and to question how we as the body of Christ are called to respond.

This summer's visit to Bohoc gave me the opportunity to see all the different parts of the Matthew 28 Ministry. It was started with a simple mission - "To spread the gospel of Jesus Christ by feeding hungry children and caring for orphans." There are some troubling statistics about childhood mortality in Haiti which is due in part to the lack of access to reliable and nourishing food for growing children. The Matthew 28 Ministry has a straight-forward approach to hunger, to lack, to need. They use their resources to support feeding centers. The Matthew 28 Ministry buys the food and then finds Haitian community leaders - pastors and teachers - who will commit to cook and serve 5 meals a week to 50 nearby children. As of right now there are 19 feeding centers in the rural communities around the Central Plateau that are providing for the needs of children in their neighborhoods.

I was so thankful to be able to visit one of the feeding centers and to be reminded of the centrality of this simple gospel mission - provide bread for life as you share the Bread of Life. I'm hopeful that the pictures below will tell you the story of the feeding centers and the ways that these little bodies and souls are nourished during their time there.