By Bread Staff
As a Christian organization, Bread for the World puts prayer at the heart of our work to end hunger.
Bread for the World Sunday, which many of you celebrated this week, is the day we rededicate ourselves to prayer and our work to end hunger. Now we want to invite you to deepen your prayer commitment.
Bread is joining with the OurPrayer Ministry of Guideposts for a week of prayer to end hunger. Visit the Guideposts’ website each day this week and find a common prayer that you can pray for a world without hunger.
There are currently more than 795 million people, or 1 in 9, around the world suffering from chronic hunger, including 159 million children who are chronically malnourished. Prayer reminds us that behind each statistic is a cherished human life – a brother or sister in Christ.
In Nepal, Meena Gurung lost her first child to hunger. As a subsistance farmer, Gurung could not access the kinds of nutritious foods she needed for herself and her growing child. Like too many expectant mothers who live in extreme poverty, Gurung’s pregnancy ended as a consequence of malnourishment.
In Guatemala, the cost of extreme poverty has been no less painful for the Pascual family. Single mother of four Catarina Pascual could not earn enough money washing clothes to buy the fruits and vegetables her children needed to thrive. Worrying about where to find their next meal became her constant companion.
Too many mothers around the world weep for children lost or stunted from hunger. The cause of hunger in the world is not a shortage of food but rather lack of access to the right food.
When we pray, we stoke our compassion for families like the Pascuals and Gurungs. Compassion is more than just sympathy – it is love in action. At Bread, we channel love into advocating for programs that help end hunger. Just this year, advocacy helped pass the Global Food Security Act, a bill that helps alleviate hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.
By Gurung’s third pregnancy, she had access to a U.S.-funded program that is now permanent with the passage of the Global Food Security Act. She was counseled about the right foods her child would need to survive and grow. Likewise, Pascual benefitted from a program that gave her access to the nutrition her twin daughters needed to grow strong.
Pray unceasingly for a world where everyone has enough to eat and reach their God-given potential. Together with Guideposts – a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting faith values to daily life – we are dedicating this week to prayer.
Join us and thousands of others October 16 – 21 in praying for compassion, leadership, and for an end to the hunger.
