500 Families Come to the Grace Center Seeking Food
Mothers and babies visit while waiting for the corn distribution to begin.
Mothers waiting to find food for their children.
A family receives 10 to 20 kg based on the number of family members, age, ability to work and need.
Over the past couple of weeks, the hunger season has grown worse and worse in Malawi. Last year's crop is gone and the new harvest is still ripening in the fields. For the past two weeks, 10 to 20 families have been coming each day to the Grace Center in search of food. Some have gone 4 or 5 days without any food. At the beginning of February, we said "Yes!" We determined to have food available for hungry people till the harvest comes in.
On Thursday, February 20th, however, we met with an unexpected turn of events. Suddenly instead of 20 or 30 families, Pastor Phiri had 500 families knocking at the door in search of food! WOW! During the night the Holy Spirit had shown him that hundreds of people would be coming to the Grace Center for food. And they did!
The food that was to last through the hungry season was gone in one short day. But the smiles and joy in people's faces to find food for their family, is irresistible! What a privilege to be the hands and feet of Father as He provides for His children! So we asked our COH family to help us feed the multitude! What an amazing response. In just 24 hours, you gave more than $13,000 to purchase corn! Thank you so much!
It's not too late to take part in this exciting opportunity! Your gift of $25 will purchase one bag of corn. This will feed 5 families for 4 days. Will you help feed a family or two today? DONATE NOW!
February and March are the most difficult months as the previous years harvest is gone, but the new harvest is not yet ripe enough to eat. Many families begin cutting back to one meal a day and eventually to one meal every two or three days. Mother's and Father's become weak, but they go from farm to farm begging for work. Often they receive their pay in food (corn).
By the end of February however, even jobs on farms are difficult to find and families begin to travel from home to home begging for food. If they are lucky enough to find someone who still has corn available, they will often have to make the deal of receiving one bag of corn now to be repaid with two bags of corn at the harvest. This kind of loan-shark deal further endangers families who can barely produce adequate food on their small, hand-tilled farms. With soils leached from poor farming practices and with fertilizers so expensive, many farmers barely produce 4 or 5 bags of corn, hardly enough for one month for their families.
