¨For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat¨ (Matthew 25:35)
Approximately 300km from Lichinga, in an area called Cuamba, the people in the villages have been suffering from hunger. This problem started back in 2014 when strong rains started during the planting season. This resulted in much flooding and many lost their homes and plantations. The people of this area mainly live off of the land and the crops they grow. Seeing as they were not able to plant, there was no harvest. So they have been surviving on whatever they can until now. But we have already heard reports of people dying of either hunger or as a result of looking for wild plants and eating them before making sure they are edible. The people do not know how they are going to survive till the next harvest, which is in about 3 months’ time.
In order to help them in this situation, we embarked on a mission of taking food to this area in the beginning of February. We took 2000 kg of maize flour to distribute, which is what the people use to make xima, the basis of the Mozambican diet. Besides the maize flour we also took beans, oil, salt, and dried fish.
Many people gathered on our first day of distributing the food. We made the most of the opportunity to share the Good News with them, declaring the goodness of the Lord even in the midst of the adversities and hardships of life. We also shared about having a grateful heart in response to the love of God, which He was demonstrating through His provision. This was something that had come from Father God and not from us.
During the two days of food distribution, we visited a family that was eating wild roots because it was the only thing they could find to eat!
We were not prepared for the huge number of people who turned up on our last day of distributing the food. However, the love of God also surprised us as He gave us wisdom to know how to equally divide up the food and in the end approximately 1,970 people, including children, were fed. Our idea is to put together a strategic plan of repeating this over the next 3 months or so.
Please be praying with us that the people may feel the Father´s love in their lives and satisfy not only their physical hunger but also the spiritual hunger in their hearts.