Hurricane Michael – which strengthened from a Category 1 storm to a Category 4 in just two days – was the third strongest hurricane to make landfall in the continental US.

Emergency crews were still making their way through rubble even as NGOs were putting plans into place to send help.

Debris following Hurricane Michael. (Photo courtesy of Staff Sgt. Carmen Fleischmann via The National Guard on Flickr under Creative Commons: https://goo.gl/869Kcr)

Food for the Hungry’s Beth Allen says, “The needs are pretty basic: they need non-perishable food, they need bottled water, and they also need to be able to clean up their houses. We have made connections with someone [in the Florida panhandle] who has been a partner of ours for quite some time… Now, we’re able to turn around and help this church in their time of need to help people in their area.”

This partnering church will be buying local emergency supplies and distributing them immediately.

“We are raising funds so that our trusted partner church can be able to do the outreach. They will be purchasing locally and then helping put together something they’re calling ‘Flood Buckets,’ which are cleaning buckets that are full of cleaning supplies and tools that can be used to clean up the house after a flood has come through.”

Allen says it’s the wreckage you can’t see down the line that will also need attention.

“Several weeks after a disaster, [we often see] increases in domestic violence, for example, or parents abusing children in ways that they probably wouldn’t normally do if it weren’t for the disasters.

“About a month after a disaster, you’ll see peaks and incidences of depression. You’ll also see anyone with a chronic disease, like asthma or high blood pressure, that’s exacerbated by a disaster. The stress makes it worse, and also their access to the medications they need will be disrupted.”

If there’s one thing that faith-based help teams are good at, it’s helping to shoulder a burden.

“When people are in need like this, just the fact that someone would take the time to show up and help really is putting the Gospel into motion…. It does cause people to ask questions: ‘Why are you doing this for me?’”

(Image courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

You can help, first of all, by giving to Hurricane Michael aid efforts through FH’s ministry partners. Click here to donate at FH’s website.

Finally, Allen adds, “We can definitely be praying for the wisdom of the people who are doing the responding…. Be praying for those people to be able to truly find those who are in need and to be able to take an assessment of what those needs are so that we can get those needs met as soon as possible.

“I think one of the biggest needs is just praying for the sense of grief and loss that so many people are going through right now.”

Header photo depicts heavy debris following Hurricane Michael. Photo courtesy of Staff Sgt. Carmen Fleischmann via The National Guard on Flickr under Creative Commons: https://goo.gl/N6FPgY

FH’s former CEO and current president Gary Edmonds appointed Mike Meyers to take over as CEO, effective October 1st. Edmonds will continue in his role as president until April when Meyers will assume that position as well.

Meyers has served with FH for nearly seven years. He was first hired as the ministry’s senior director of marketing and communications, then later served as the chief development officer.

We talked to Meyers and asked why he is passionate about FH’s ministry. He says, “I’m really excited about continuing the work of moving with all the countries we work in towards this idea of graduating communities from extreme poverty; not staying around, but really creating sustainable development work that allows people to move out of the situation they’re in.”

(Photo & header photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“The great thing of working alongside Gary the last few years, he has allowed me to run with a few things. One of those was…just trying to solidify who we are as an organization. It’s something that has come out really what we refer to as the heartbeat of the organization — that we are clearly about ending all forms of human poverty and then really the idea and purpose of graduating communities from extreme poverty.”

FH’s work takes various forms — child sponsorship, food and health programs, refugee aid, and more — all in the name of Jesus.

Meyers was personally moved when he met a Syrian refugee family in Lebanon last year who endured a gripping journey over the mountainous border in the dead of winter.

“I sat with a refugee family and just saw what they had gone through. This lady had four kids and I saw how God had really impacted their lives by getting them to where they were, getting them out of a dangerous situation…. I heard their whole story, and even though the lady didn’t speak the same language as me, it was like you could hear the story from her actions.”

The woman’s husband had traveled ahead of the family and she followed later with their four children. Their older son is disabled and had to be carried by another traveler. The woman shared with Meyers how she carried her infant on her back and her two other children in her arms.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“It was just such a deep conversation that we had, learning about what they had been through and to see how God was working in their life and really working through the local churches in the community and some of the Christians to impact the Syrian refugees that come across the border. I want to be part of that kind of stuff for many years to come.”

There are many ways you can come alongside FH’s ministry and find your place in the story. Just click here to visit their website!

Finally, please pray for FH to continue effectively reaching impoverished communities with aid and spiritual hope. Ask God to bless Meyers and Edmonds during this time of transition with wisdom. Pray for those being served by FH to come to know Jesus as their Savior.

Marshall Shepherd, a meteorology professor at the University of Georgia, told USA Today, “The concept of saying ‘downgraded’ or ‘weakened’ should be forever banished. With Florence, I felt it was more dangerous after it was lowered to Category 2.”

Hurricane Florence (Photo courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr under Creative Commons: https://goo.gl/8SyGdt)

Storm surges and heavy flooding from hurricanes are formidable foes, even without Category 4 winds. More than 320,000 homes in North Carolina had no power as of Tuesday and tens of thousands of homes are damaged. Property damage from Hurricane Florence is estimated to reach between $17 billion to $22 billion, according to Moody’s Analytics.

As communities across the Carolinas wait for flood waters to recede, ministries like Food for the Hungry are already starting to respond.

Alice Zhang, content strategist with Food for the Hungry, explains, “While Food for the Hungry works primarily internationally to graduate communities from extreme poverty, as an organization we are also called to respond to human suffering, especially when that comes to disaster relief.”

FH is currently raising funds to mobilize a church partner just outside Charlotte, North Carolina for emergency relief.

“They are providing food and emergency supplies to the people there,” says Zhang. “They have also partnered with the local foster system to provide housing through local hotels to foster families right now who have no place to live.

“They are also planning that when roads are reopened, they are going to head over to the coastal areas that are hardest hit and send over a rapid response team as well to help with food, water, and emergency supplies.”

(Image courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

If you would like to donate to FH’s Emergency Relief for Victims of Hurricane Florence fund, click here!

Zhang also encourages, “Continue to keep the Carolinas in your prayers, that God would continue to protect the residents there as well as all the emergency responders who are going out and helping with relocation and some of the flood mitigation techniques. Also, just [pray] for a sense of peace despite the chaos, and that the flooding from the hurricane would subside.”

(Header photo courtesy of The National Guard via Flickr under Creative Commons: https://goo.gl/bvo7mK)

A study by Grey Matter Research and Opinions 4 Good shows 54 percent of current child sponsors think it’s “mostly a gimmick to get donations.”

However, Gary Edmonds, President of Food for the Hungry (FH), says this assumption couldn’t be farther from the truth in their ministry.

“Sponsorship is more than that. The big thing that sponsorship does is, yes, it helps donors to connect in personal, meaningful ways, but it has a major impact on the children and the families of those children where the children have been sponsored by somebody from another country or another context.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Child sponsorship is a key part of what FH does. When you sponsor a child through their ministry, you directly improve that particular child’s life.

FH does a lot of monitoring and follow-up with sponsored kids and their families. One thing FH monitors is the measure of hope for the kids — both before and after they are sponsored.

Edmonds says hope assessments look at several factors: “How do they view the future? How do they think about their own life? Is it a fatalistic environment where they seem to feel that it’s helpless or do they believe that they’ve got skills, abilities, [and] empowerment that has come from God to make a difference?”

Their findings show that child sponsors have a significant influence, and it’s not just temporary.

“We have found that where there is child sponsorship…actually, hope rises. They have a growth in [their] sense of self-worth. They have a sense that they can make a difference in their community and in their own lives.

“They tend to go much, much farther in school. These children, all of a sudden, rather than getting only a first-grade or second-grade education as I have seen in some contexts, they have aspirations to go on to secondary school…. Some of them [go] to college and beyond. So education is significantly higher in those who are sponsored.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Edmonds continues, “Later, after they finish school, the children who have been sponsored actually seek better jobs. Rather than menial, manual labor kind of jobs, they seek skill jobs. They say, ‘We can make a contribution here.’”

FH works in several extremely impoverished contexts where the average income is less than $1.90 per day. The kids here are often in survival mode, fending for themselves while their parents or caretakers work and sometimes even going to work with them.

“It’s very basic; very hand-to-mouth for most of them,” Edmonds explains. “As I go into those places too, for them to get one meal — hopefully, two meals in a day — that is great. For many of these people too…they are often having to walk one to even two hours to fetch water.

“I remember one time meeting one of the children I was working with, and I [asked], ‘What difference does it make that you have now been sponsored?’ The child and the parent began to cry and their comment was, ‘We know now that we matter to God because you have responded to God’s call and are becoming our sponsors.’”

As FH ministers to impoverished kids and their families, the staff seeks to address all forms of poverty — physical, relational, intellectual, and especially spiritual. Everything FH does is in the name of Jesus and families often end up engaging ministry workers in spiritual conversations.

“One of the things we do in these kinds of environments is we work with the kids [and] we address the issues. This is a part of the rising hope. [We] address the issues of their own belief systems and consequently their behaviors. So it looks at spiritual matters.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

It only takes $38 a month to sponsor a child with FH. Doing so provides that child with food assistance, clean water, medical care, and an education through their community!

Edmonds explains, “You’re going to get a photograph. You’re going to get something of a biographical sketch of the child, the family, [and] the community where they’re at. You’re going to become known by the child and in the process, the child is going to know you. They’re going to see you as a person who cares for them, who is expressing love.”

Click here to learn more about sponsoring a child with FH!

“If you were to consider sponsoring a child, you can be about literally changing the trajectory of life for many of these young people by being in that kind of a relationship.”

(Header photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

The study was recently completed by the Barna Group and commissioned by Compassion International, titled “The Good News About Global Poverty: What Americans Believe About the World’s Poor — and What Churches Can Do to Help.”

One of the study’s more positive findings was that extreme poverty has been on a strong decline for decades.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Gary Edmonds, President and CEO of Food for the Hungry (FH), explains, “Back in about 1990, it was estimated that close to two billion people globally lived in a situation of extreme poverty. But since 1990, it’s estimated that 1.1 billion have actually risen out of extreme poverty.

“That is an encouraging statement, that God is responding, the strategies, the plans, the work that we and many, many others are doing is actually having a positive impact. So I’m encouraged by that!”

People around the world who live on less than $1.90 a day are considered extremely impoverished. While it is heartening to hear that fewer people are in this state today than in recent decades, there was also bad news in the report.

Ministering to the Body, Abandoning the Soul

“One of the interesting things that I saw from the Barna study is that it said for Americans, even including American Christians, that the lowest factor that they considered that was relevant to reducing extreme poverty was the spiritual factor. That astounded me,” says Edmonds.

“Here we are, we are a people who have been given freedom — freedom to worship, freedom to believe, freedom to practice our own faith, especially those of us who are followers of Jesus and would hold the Bible up as the Word of God. And yet, many of these people don’t necessarily see a correlation between faith and faith practices relative to reducing extreme poverty in the world. I think they more often see it as doling out or handing out goods, material things.”

Part of this may be in response to abusive ministry tactics people have witnessed. When organizations use religion as a bribe before giving out aid, spiritual commitments made in this context are empty at best and severely damaged at worst.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

However, swinging the pendulum to the other extreme and serving only the body without any ministry to the soul leaves people in extreme spiritual poverty.

In FH’s ministry, Edmonds says they embrace a holistic approach.

“We want to see all forms of human poverty ended worldwide. So when we say extreme poverty at that point, we look at it from a physical [and] economical perspective, but we look at it as well…from a spiritual perspective. We want extreme poverty to be ended spiritually, socially — we want relationships healthy — educationally, [and] intellectually as well.”

What Does Balanced Ministry Look Like?

“So what do we do?” asks Edmonds. “We enter into communities. We build relationships with communities that are in extreme poverty…. As we enter into those communities, we will do an assessment with the local community. We want them to own their own change or transformation.”

Not everyone FH serves will end up giving their lives to Christ. And that’s okay. Spiritual commitments are not a requirement for someone to benefit from the ministry.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

As Edmonds puts it, their ministry’s goal is to go into impoverished communities and represent Emmanuel — “God with us.” FH staff are open to spiritual conversations and ultimately there to meet needs in the name of Jesus.

“So we will come alongside them, we will teach them, we will train them, we will help them to actually begin to respond to their own priorities. It might be clean water, it might be a living wage, it might be with education, health concerns, [and] we’ve helped a lot of them start churches.”

Secular Organizations are Taking Notice

This approach is unique in comparison to secular organizations that are unable to meet spiritual needs. Edmonds says FH’s effectiveness in reducing poverty has caught the attention of big-name groups like World Bank and political leaders.

“We have been recognized on a global basis — even by governments — that the biggest thing we do in bringing about a change to contexts of extreme poverty is we change the beliefs and behaviors…of the local people.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“As the beliefs of the local people change, as they live in hope, as they have a trust in God and they want to have a life that is moral and ethical according to God’s Word, to God’s truth, that actually helps them to rise dramatically out of extreme poverty!

“We have had these groups actually come to us and say, ‘We see you’re a leading change agent and that as you go in and as you work with these people, hope rises in the lives of these people. Therefore, we are asking you to advise us on how can we engage better with faith-based, Christian organizations. You seem to have a key understanding to this reduction of extreme poverty.’”

We Have More To Do

While the dramatic reduction of extreme poverty is an encouraging sign, there is still a lot of work to do. The Church is a major force in this movement, but there are many more who could get involved.

“The people of God need to realize we have an awful lot to bring as the people of God in helping to reduce extreme poverty. I would love for pastors and those who would teach to actually grasp and help the members of their congregation to understand this,” says Edmonds.

“We’ve got major things to be able to offer our world in the reduction of poverty, and that includes bringing the tenants and the principles of our faith.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Fighting global poverty in all its forms isn’t hard. It just takes some intentionality to find those ministries that are responding to physical needs and also sharing spiritual hope in Jesus Christ.

Once you’ve done that, an obvious way to get involved is to support your chosen ministry! Click here to learn more about Food for the Hungry.

“It’s like sending a missionary at that point. Your donations allow groups like us, Food for the Hungry, to literally have people who live in states often of destitute. So you’re sending people to live amongst these impoverished people.”

And finally, Edmonds says, “The last thing I would tell you to do is advocate for it! Get yourself educated, learn, read this study for example out of Barna, and engage and advocate with others. Let us unite in this effort to fight and reduce poverty.

“Might we be eager to respond to the plight of the poor in the world because I believe that is a part of God’s will and that’s a part of God’s heart.”

(Header photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

The Rohingya people are a stateless minority from Myanmar who fled ethnic violence. Many of them ended up in Bangladesh. While the repatriation process was postponed, most have no desire to return to Myanmar.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

The Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh is now the largest in the world with over one million people. But it is not in a great spot.

Gary Edmonds with Food for the Hungry explains, “They have…created these what are called ‘spontaneous settlements’. In other words, they find some open land [and] they find some places where they try to create a little bit of shelter, get some food, water, [and] sanitation conditions. But it so happens that where they have settled is also in a highly vulnerable floodplain.”

The monsoon rain in the refugee camp brings the dangers of collapsing buildings and tents, floods, landslides, and waterborne diseases. Bangladesh’s monsoon season typically lasts from June to October. The first weekend of monsoon season in early June saw 15 inches of rain and winds roaring in at 43 miles per hour.

“With the rains as well as these very, very concentrated living environments, you’ve got a situation where malaria, cholera, diphtheria — waterborne illnesses — are likely to be spread, and spread rapidly.”

Food for the Hungry is trying to get ahead of the problem in the Rohingya refugee camp, along with fellow ministry partners.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“We have been a part with Medical Teams International of building health clinics…and then educating the people and training healthcare workers to allow them to navigate this kind of a season. [The problem is] you just can’t get to the health clinics right now. Roads are literally washed out. There is no way of transport.”

Part of the solution is to train local Rohingya people in disease prevention and sanitation so they can teach others in the camps. Footbridges will also hopefully be built over flooded roads and gullies so people can still get across.

Tangible aid is also still needed. “We try to equip them as best we can with boots and rain slickers and garments and so forth…. The second side of it is to get clean water and to get food to these people. That’s what Food for the Hungry is working at as well right now.”

As Edmonds puts it, “A hard place has simply just become harder for us to work and operate in. But nevertheless, it doesn’t inhibit us in a sense and it doesn’t create a situation where we’re simply just trying to wait it out.”

As believers, there are multiple things we can do to respond to the Rohingya crisis. But one thing we can’t do as a Church is nothing.

Zohrab is one of thousands of Rohingya mothers who fled Bangladesh and barely survived with her baby, Noor. (Photo, caption courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“This is the kind of thing that breaks God’s heart as a father who has created these people in His image. Therefore, might it break our heart in such a way that it will lead us to respond, and respond appropriately [at] this time in history. I think this is one of the crucial ways that we can be witnesses to the love and the grace of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ.”

Edmonds suggests, “First of all, search, go on the web, get yourself educated. Many, many people are not educated about the Rohingya people and the crisis and all that is happening. This is viewed as likely one of the biggest humanitarian emergencies of history — more than one million people who are stateless people.”

Additionally, Father’s Day was earlier this week. With this focus recently on our minds, Edmonds says we can pray that the Rohingya people would come to know their Heavenly Father.

“God the Father has actually fashioned, created these people. They are handmade people by the Father of Heaven. He loves them,…He knows them by name, He knows their gifts and their skills and their abilities. So pray that God would intervene.

“Then lastly, if you are inclined, if you are looking at this, we would love for people to give. This is one of those kinds of crisis areas. We do get some grants from larger groups, UN bodies, and so forth, but we need to constantly supplement that for our staff. Private donations, people who give, churches who give are the instrumental way for us to actually respond.”

Click here to give to FH’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis fund!

(Header photo courtesy of Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr: https://goo.gl/daSWrS)

FH’s Beth Allen shares, “Over the more than 20 years that I’ve been with Food for the Hungry, I’ve seen so many examples of how caring for the environment is really very key to helping children grow up into the children that God intends them to be and into the adults that God intends them to be.”

This concept hit home for Allen when she visited Rwanda with Food for the Hungry last year. She spent time with several families in mountain communities. Because of the genocide and political upheaval in Rwanda several years ago, people fled the country in droves. Then years later, many Rwandans returned.

Allen says, “That turned Rwanda into one of the most densely populated countries in the world with families carving out farms on hillsides, little postage stamp farms, and trying to make a living on it and trying to feed their children, trying to nourish their children.”

Over the years, the land and water in many Rwandan communities became degraded and sick from poor farming practices and lacked necessary nutrients for healthy crops. This had a harsh impact on community and child health.

Allen shares the story of a Rwandan mother named Venantie and her 8-year-old daughter Vestine.

“As we talked, she brought up that Vestine had been so malnourished when she was about 9-months-old, they had to take her into what’s called the therapeutic feeding center which is a hospital or a clinic that specifically deals with severely malnourished children. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this child’s life was in danger at that point.”

Today, Vestine is a healthy 8-year-old child. Venantie told Allen that her daughter is well fed and excelling in school. Food for the Hungry had given this family a milk cow and taught the father sustainable farming practices.

When the father had first tried to grow coffee as a cash crop, the soil had so little nutrients that the harvest was sparse. The coffee that did grow had sickly yellow leaves and was very unhealthy.

Now, Allen shares, “The father said, ‘With the manure, I am able to fertilize my field, I’m able to take care of the soil.’… The father is able to do coffee as a cash crop. They are using the manure also in a vegetable garden, which helps to make sure that the children get their complete complement of vitamins and minerals in their daily diet…. All in all, it was a really great example of creation care.”

Caring for the earth and animals that our Heavenly Father created is important. However, Food for the Hungry recognizes it is a balancing act.

“One of the things we do fight against sometimes is this idea that…creation care, Earth Day, it comes dangerously close to idolatry. We do know that is the case, there are people who are worshipping the creation rather than the Creator and we definitely don’t want to go that direction. But I think it’s getting the word out there that there is nothing unchristian about caring for the environment,” says Allen.

“The command to care for the earth comes in I believe it’s the second chapter of Genesis. It’s pretty darned early in the Bible where it shows up. So it’s our response to Scripture to be able to help people do these things to get them over the barriers they have so they can be responding to Scripture.”

The sustainable earth care training FH does with families in Rwanda and around the world is very biblically based.

“We have to show that you live in response to God’s love for us and the response of that is taking care of the creation that God made.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

So how can you actively value earth care and sustainability this Earth Day? Click here to sponsor a child with Food for the Hungry!

Allen explains, “With Food for the Hungry, all of the programs that I was seeing were funded by child sponsors — people who were sponsoring a child each month with Food for the Hungry. That allowed us to be able to send staff and do the training we had to do with these families and to do the regular check-ups we need to do with these families.”

FH’s child sponsorships cost just $38 a month and enact holistic change for the child and their family physically, relationally, and most importantly, spiritually.

“By sponsoring a child and giving us an opportunity to go and work in that community, we’re already helping the next generation.”

Government officials in Bangladesh are eager to repatriate Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar and have agreed to let the UN oversee the repatriation process. Myanmar officials said at the end of January that they were ready for the Rohingya to return, but the process has been delayed until it is deemed “safe”.

However, one Rohingya woman told CNN they will never feel safe enough to return to the nation that allowed the slaughter their people.

For now, most of the Rohingya refugees are living in refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Overcrowding and cramped conditions make it easy for the silent killer of disease to sweep through the camp.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

That’s why Food for the Hungry and Medical Teams International have joined forces to assemble a series of medical facilities throughout the refugee settlements in Cox’s Bazar.

Matt Ellingson with FH explains, “These are temporary structures. You know, everything in a refugee camp is in transition at the most basic levels, so we have shelters that are strategically located through three zones of the hugest camp you can imagine — over 800,000 people living in what used to be jungle, but now it is just rolling mud. These facilities are strategically located so that a catchment area of around 350,000 people have access to these primary healthcare facilities.”

Food for the Hungry has been working in Bangladesh since 1973, so they really are experts on ministry in the context of Bangladesh. For the medical facilities, FH provides the administrative and program guidance, and Medical Teams International brings in the health professionals.

Together, the ministries have already opened three medical facilities in Cox’s Bazar to serve Rohingya refugees. They are also working on three more medical facilities to launch as soon as they can.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“First, we have to allocate the land, find the space within the camp, [and] prepare the space because it’s a highly unstable land and the monsoon rains are coming. We have to be careful and make sure our facilities won’t slide off the side of the hill. Then we bring in health professionals.”

When the Rohingya refugee crisis first became apparent, Food for the Hungry deployed a needs assessment team. Ellingson was a part of this team and he says, “There were gaps in every type of activity required for life to thrive across the board in this crisis. You know, 600,000 people came across the border in a short matter of a couple of months, so you can imagine that everything from shelter to food, everything was in desperate need.”

Food for the Hungry and Medical Teams International decided that together they could have the most lifesaving impact in the medical care sector. The medical facilities they opened provide healthcare treatments, home visits, and if there is a serious illness or condition that needs hospitalization, they refer patients to a hospital outside the camp.

“Our program is like the tip of the spear in disease outbreak prevention. Your readers and listeners may have heard about the diphtheria outbreak. Our program was going door-to-door identifying people who showed likelihood of having diphtheria and getting them into the healthcare system in an effort to prevent the outbreak of diphtheria across this terrible, just amazingly congested, unsanitary refugee camp.”

Dignity is something that has been stripped from the Rohingya people time and time again. They were not recognized as citizens of Myanmar. They were shuffled into squalor villages in Myanmar that lacked access to many necessities. They were attacked, raped, murdered, and their villages burned. Now they live in congested camps while political figures debate what is to become of them.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Ellingson says through medical care, Food for the Hungry is aiming to reaffirm the beautiful dignity of the Rohingya people.

“The situation with the Rohingya refugees is complex. It is not just something that just happened over the last couple of months. This is a minority-versus-majority tension that has hundreds of years of history behind it, so it is complicated. There is a lot of history in this scenario. But regardless of all the hundreds of years of tension, people shouldn’t be treated this way. So we are motivated by the love that the Lord has for us to love our neighbor, regardless of where that neighbor is, and the Rohingya are our neighbor as well.”

Please take this opportunity to pray for Food for the Hungry’s ministry and for the Rohingya refugees.

Ellingson says for their team on the ground in Bangladesh, “Just being physically worn out and then vulnerable to illness is huge. The impact we are seeing in the United States here with this horrible flu season, the same type of impact is happening on the ground within the humanitarian community. When aid workers fall ill, critical services are impacted negatively. So pray for health for the whole team — emotional health, spiritual health, and physical health.”

Click here if you would like to financially support ministry to Rohingya refugees through Food for the Hungry.

Human trafficking plagues every country. In the US, human trafficking is in every state. Human trafficking touches every demographic.

Food for the Hungry’s ministry specifically works in India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and the Philippines where they see rampant human trafficking activity.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Gary Edmonds, President and CEO of Food for the Hungry, explains, “The kind of context where we see it most often happening is where there is real extreme poverty. This may surprise us in the United States, but when you get families that are at the edge of starvation, they’re simply just trying to survive.”

Edmonds witnessed the blight of human trafficking and the impoverished scenarios that fuel it while he was in India.

“I saw a father say, ‘I’m going to place my 12-year-old daughter up for sale.’ She was going to be used in the sex trade at that point. And for him, it was simply a matter of survival. He knew of no other way.

“For 500 years, the culture of this community had said this is legitimate…to take our first female child of our family and between 12 and 13-years of age sell that girl into another profession that will allow us as a family to garner the income from the sale of this child. I say there has to be another alternative. That is evil woven into that society.”

In India, Food for the Hungry has established homes called the House of Palms in conjunction with local believers and ministries. These homes bring girls freed from the sex trade into a merciful environment where they can receive assistance, education, and healing. While Food for the Hungry is not involved in the actual rescue aspect, they empower the local Church to care for these rescued girls at the House of Palms.

“They’re introduced to a loving God. They are introduced to a God who cares for them, a God who wants their wellbeing. They are introduced then to an educational system. They are introduced to a place where there is protection and provision and ongoing nurture. And these girls then all of a sudden begin to flourish.”

Some of these girls will even go back to their families and show how their lives have changed now that they are free and living for Christ.

“What we’re seeing is that God’s truth and God’s love has the power to break this pattern of criminality, of cruelness for certain people in different parts of the globe.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Edmonds says at the same time in many of the countries FH serves, “What we’re doing is working with the community, working with the families, working with the men, the fathers of that kind of a community to say, ‘Let us teach you about alternative livelihoods. Let us teach you how to take care of the protection and provision of your family in this kind of a way so you can operate without selling your children into some kind of a trafficked position.’”

It all comes down to the comprehensive approaches needed to get ahead of, address the root of, and heal the broken impacts of human trafficking.

Food for the Hungry as an organization recently went through an exercise to review all the theological texts and documents that have guided their ministry. In the process, they embraced Colossians 1:19-20, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

From that verse, Edmonds shares, “It’s our conviction from a biblical perspective that Jesus coming to earth was to take everything — all aspects of life that have been broken, damaged by sin, Satan, and the world — and reconcile them or restore them.”

“The consequence of that is as we would work with people, we would say (and I put it like this) that we’re human beings in flesh. We live in space, time, and history. We live in relationship with God. We live in relationship with others. Therefore, what Jesus is doing with this right now is he’s looking to touch and to influence and redeem and have a transformational impact on each and every aspect of our life. This is Jesus’ way.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

As FH follows the way of Jesus as a ministry, they will continue addressing the brokenness of the world with this holistic approach — one that touches man’s physical, relational, and spiritual self.

“You want to address the beliefs, the values, [and] the behavioral systems that are inculcated into an entire society at that point so you can say, ‘We’re not simply just rescuing this child, but at the same time, we’re looking to actually change the culture and change the wellbeing of that entire society or in that entire community so that this no longer becomes an option.”

With the evil of human trafficking, Edmonds says, “There’s going to be another human being who is going to use power, who is going to use control, who is going to use monetary services in such a way as to say, ‘I’m going to control you and I’m going to treat you as less than a human being created in the image of God.’

“But God knows them. He knows them intimately. He knows them by name and he’s got a purpose for them. He wants them to flourish and he wants them to thrive.”

On Food for the Hungry’s website, you can read their reports and learn more about how their outreach is enacting holistic change around the world!

Click here to give to Food for the Hungry.

You can also sponsor a child with Food for the Hungry here.

In doing so, you can help Food for the Hungry extend the answer to a trafficked child’s question: “Does anybody see me?”

The answer is truly, joyfully, deeply: “Jesus”.

“She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’”

Genesis 16:13 NIV

Food for the Hungry’s Gary Edmonds explains, “[The Rohingya] are a stateless people and the Myanmar government has planted landmines on the border basically saying, ‘We don’t want you back.’ But at the same time, they’re not really fully engaged or fully welcomed into Bangladesh.”

(Photo courtesy of Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr: https://goo.gl/daSWrS)

Their ministry has been serving in Bangladesh since 1971, and they’ve been working with Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar area since the crisis started back in October.

Currently, Edmonds says the biggest issue facing the Rohingya in refugee camps is disease and lack of sanitation. “The situation, it’s dire. There have been floods. There’s muck and there are situations where the water is not healthy and pure. People right now are facing massive health issues. It can be health issues related to cholera, it can be simply just the disease of having to walk through feces, no latrines, no sanitation systems.”

According to a report Sunday from the UN Children’s Fund, there are 1,138 suspected cases of diphtheria in the Rohingya refugee camps and 19 resulting deaths. Children are the most vulnerable – 76% of the diphtheria cases were in kids 14 and under.

That’s why FH has partnered with Medical Teams International. They set up health clinics in the Rohingya refugee camps and even began training local Rohingya to lead sanitation initiatives.

“We believe that social credibility is of the essence. You know, here’s a traumatized people, here’s a people who have been hurt and harmed by conflict, who have fled their own state, their own nation. They’re uncertain what the future is going to hold. So we try to mobilize local people of the actual refugee community.”

Edmonds tells of one young Rohingya man who was formerly an English teacher. “We were looking to raise up and train local health people who could go in and work with family units. He came and he said in essence, ‘I’m here to serve my people; I’m here to serve my neighbors.’

“So because he had English and we were able to train him, we trained him on how to go in and use water and salt systems to prevent diarrhea. We talked about how to do basic health checkups with the folks and begin to treat them for whatever diseases were there. He began to train them in…how to use the latrine systems as well, the sanitation, so as not to contract cholera in that kind of an environment. And he basically said, ‘You’ve helped me to love my own people.’”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Now is a critical time to make a difference. Click here to give to FH’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis Fund!

In the midst of service, they are acting as God’s agents of mercy to the oppressed Rohingya people.

“That’s what we’re trying to do. We make a statement that our purpose is, together, we follow God’s call responding to human suffering,” says Edmonds.

“We are a part of a Gospel movement. We are part of a movement, I believe, of love, of mercy, of grace. This is the very essence of this kind of a season, that God is leading a movement of love, of mercy, of grace into a broken world and we have been given the privilege to push back the darkness, to respond to human suffering. So join the movement!”

(Header photo: Zohrab is one of thousands of Rohingya mothers who fled Bangladesh and barely survived with her baby, Noor. [Photo, caption courtesy of Food for the Hungry])