Southern Baptists love to eat. I have always argued that cooking extraordinaire Paula Deen has nothing on Southern Baptist ladies. If you know me you know I am a living testimony to that delicious fact. No one can find more tasty fried chicken, more mouth-watering hash brown casserole or more lip-smacking pecan pie than at a Southern Baptist picnic where the ladies of the church have brought their cooking talents to bear on us all.
But not everyone is so blessed. I’m reminded of a story my sister, who is an elementary public school teacher in Tennessee, told about an encounter she had with one of the children in her class. The time had come for the children to storm outside for recess when this sad-looking little boy stayed seated. My sister asked him what was wrong. The child looked up and softly said, “Miss Leann, I haven’t had anything to eat, and I’m hungry.” Knowing he came from a poor family and moved to tears, she gathered up the child took him to the cafeteria and had him fed. That story could occur anywhere – even in Missouri.
A recent study by Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest) shows that nearly two out of every 10 Missourians (more than 1 million people) do not have enough to eat. There are more than 728,000 Missourians who rely on food banks for basic sustenance. About 140,000 Missourians receive emergency food assistance in any given week, according to the Missouri Food Bank Association. The news gets worse.
A shocking 39 percent of the members of households in Missouri who need food assistance are children under age 18. Among such households, 76 percent are food insecure and 33 percent are food insecure with very low food security, meaning their household-level economic and social condition leaves them with limited or uncertain access to adequate food. Missouri ranks 27th among the 50 states when it comes to children and food insecurity. Nearly 1.4 million children in Missouri do not have access to adequate food, according to Feeding America. Hunger does not discriminate. Urban St. Louis has the highest rate of food insecurity (27 percent), followed by rural Pemiscot County (24 percent) in Missouri’s Boot Heel. More than 1 in 3 Missourians who are food insecure say they have had to choose between paying for food or medical care.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans living in poverty has risen from 39.8 million in 2008 to 46.5 million in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A record 23.1 million American households were enrolled for government food stamps in June, a 52 percent increase than there were during an average month in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Jesus stressed giving to the poor (Matt. 19:21, Luke 12:33) and providing for them (Luke 14:13, 21). The Bible stresses that both individual believers and the church are to be engaged in helping the poor. Theologian Robert Spender reminds us that the believer’s model for this action is the life of Jesus (who was poor and homeless Himself) and the Word of God, which grounds such sensitivity in the very nature of God Himself.