Story: Bread

This story is about meeting the need for spiritual food for those who are hungry.

For years I felt a little guilty that I wasn’t out feeding the world.  Was I neglecting their need for actual food?

My senior year in college was over, and I signed up for one last student missions trip.  I went to India for the first time, and met the staff who ran a very large orphanage in south India.

The Indian pastors who were in charge of the orphanage told us amazing stories.

They explained that for years they would go around to poor Hindu communities who struggled for all their needs. They had food, but not enough.

They’d put cow dung on cuts thinking it would heal their child.  But the child would get infected and die.  They’d not use a bathroom but instead would go behind a bush.

Then later they’d walk barefoot behind the same bush, and get parasites in their feet that would travel up into their intestines, and grow into worms that would eat all their food.

The worms got fat on their food. They would walk around with big bellies, but be starving and malnourished everywhere else.

Year after year my friends would go around with a medical team, and pass out shoes and show a video on how not to have worms so they wouldn’t starve.  The people never changed.

But my friends began to notice a change in some of the communities.  The ones who watched the video about Jesus, and gave their lives to Him, made changes on their own.

They built outhouses and bathrooms and wore shoes, and stopped putting cow dung on wounds.  The wisdom from Jesus was inspiring them to do what would heal them.

Their spiritual need was met, and that led to freedom in all the other things.