November 4, 2002

EDITORIAL:
Hunger offering multiplies gifts into world ministries
___A few Sundays ago, thousands of Texas Baptists studied a Sunday School lesson about the Lord's Supper. The Apostle Paul condemned wealthy Christians in Corinth, who came together and gorged on rich food and drink and then participated in the symbolic Supper with poor, starving fellow Christians, whom they had ignored only moments before.
___Today, almost 2,000 years removed from that sad scene, we shake our heads in disgust. We wonder: How could those selfish Christians have been so callous? How could they stuff themselves while fellow believers starved?
___Time and distance are powerful anesthetics. They ease the sting of sinful actions and dull the pain of prideful misconduct. However, though separated by the centuries, Texas Baptists who fail to help alleviate world hunger are little different from those Corinthians Paul eloquently condemned. Even when we're banged up by a bearish economy, Texas Baptists are fabulously wealthy. When we plan what we will eat and drink with little or no thought for others whose stomachs are empty and throats are parched, we sit in the company of the wealthy Corinthians. Perhaps even worse, when we enjoy the good life of privilege without providing for the poor, we undermine our Christian testimony, for Jesus told us that when we do not minister to "the least of these," we turn our backs on him.
___Fortunately, we can overcome the Corinthians' sin. Every year at this time, the Baptist General Convention of Texas

"Share Your Bread with the Hungry" is the theme for the 2002 Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger. The goal is just $1 million, but it is 1 million of the most important dollars Texas Baptists could spend.

receives the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger. It is sponsored by the BGCT Christian Life Commission, collected and disbursed by the BGCT Executive Board and administered by on-the-field partners throughout the state, across the nation and around the world. Every penny goes to alleviate hunger. And every gift of food is accompanied by a generous helping of the Bread of Life--the story of salvation offered by Jesus Christ.
___"Share Your Bread with the Hungry" is the theme for this year's offering. The goal is just $1 million, but it is 1 million of the most important dollars Texas Baptists could spend. The Christian Life Commission has divided the offering into 66 allocations. Here are just a few of the needs that will be met if we rise to this occasion and fund the 2002 Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger:
___ $34,000 will go to Indonesia, where two Texas mission workers are helping to provide water and teach better farming methods to people in rural parts of the country. The project in Indonesia also will help agriculture education workers, and it will provide a location to produce seed and breeding stock for villagers.
___ In Amarillo, $10,000 will enable City Church to minister to children living in poverty, as well as support the relief ministries of Eastridge Baptist Church Food Pantry, First Baptist Church, Buchanan Street Chapel Crisis and Food Pantry, and Highland Baptist Chapel.
___ Home missionary Taylor Field will use the offering to enable Graffiti Community Ministries in the Lower East Side of Manhattan to provide first-time jobs for teenagers and young adults, as well as to offer meals for poor people. Other recipients of the $41,600 earmarked for New York include the after-school ministry and soup kitchen of Greater Restoration Baptist Church in Brooklyn, meal-based outreach ministries of Carroll Street Ministry Center and nine other ministries.
___ Funds will help Camille Simmons, a staff member with San Antonio Baptist Association, as she works with volunteers and churches to feed homeless people, provide food to working-poor families and train women through Christian Women's Job Corps. In all, at least 12 churches and ministries will benefit from the $20,000 allocated to the Alamo City.
___ Some of the money, $37,000, will make its way to India. In Hyderabad, missionaries James and Robbi Frankovich will use part of that money to supervise the Buffalo Milk for Banjaras Project. Not only will it provide income for poor families, but it also will help children gain access to much-needed milk and also supply funds for medical care. Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger funds will purchase land, buffaloes, sheds, huts, fences and a well for the project. Another Indian ministry, led by missionary Wilson Dommat in Bhilia, helps young girls escape prostitution.
___ In Los Angeles, home missionary Ken Dean will take some of California's $18,600 allocation and spread it like a peanut butter sandwich to assist with food pantries, food distribution, hot meals in churches and parks, youth learning centers, tutoring, after-school meals, homeless shelters, job-readiness and job-acquisition programs, and latchkey and literacy ministries. Funds sent to California also will provide ministry in Bakersfield, Fresno, San Francisco, Exter, Ivanhoe, Potterville and Lindsay.
___ On both sides of the Rio Grande, World Hunger Offering funds will multiply hunger-relief and development ministries--from an animal reproduction program in Oaxaca, to well-digging projects in Zacatecas, to food-distribution ministries in Coahuila, to meal programs for repatriated aliens, drug addicts, the elderly and the homeless in Chihuahua.
___ New Haven Ministries in Mineral Wells will put part of $10,000 to use to serve poor people in Palo Pinto County, where six benevolence agencies have gone out of business. The balance of that gift to Parker/Palo Pinto Baptist Association will help fund Provision Center for poor people in Weatherford and Parker County.
___ $9,600 will be invested in Iowa. It will help fund domestic skills workshops and English as a Second Language programs in the eastern part of the state, home to a growing Hispanic population. And in Des Moines, home missionaries Jon and Mindy Jamison, directors of Friendship Center, will buy food and offer computer-literacy classes for low-income residents.
___The Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger is a multiplier. Our gifts will change lives and spread the gospel in Texas, the United States and in far countries. We can make a difference.
--Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@baptiststandard.com


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