Feed My Starving Children

It was only two hours, but they experienced more in that short time than I could have possibly hoped to teach them.

It wasn't book-learning, head-knowledge stuff.

It was open-your-eyes, break-your-heart kinda stuff.

The kind of stuff only God can teach.

We watched the training video that told us, "10.9 million kids under age 5 die each year in developing countries? Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60% of these deaths."

 

We saw the heart wrenching photo of the distraught three-year-old girl who weighed little more (14 lbs.) than my youngest did the day he was born (9.2 lbs.).

We saw the amazing photo of the same little girl after she had been fed consistently for seven months, her pudgy face smiling and happy!

 

I had come to this MobilePack prepared to serve, but not quite prepared to be so moved, to be so grateful for our blessings and yet so convicted of our excesses.

 

 

This amazing organization, Feed My Starving Children (FMSC), prepares enough food packs every day to feed 420,000 children. They send these packs to nearly 70 countries "to quickly reverse and prevent malnutrition."

Each pack is filled with chicken, vegetables, soybeans, and rice and all the vitamins and minerals a child needs to grow healthy and strong.

 

Each little rice pack contains six meals.

Each of those meals costs less than 25 cents.

There are 36 rice packs in every box.

If you do the math, that's 216 meals in each box.

 

One box of Manna Rice Packs is enough to feed one child for seven months.

And it only costs around $50 per box.

I had not realized how meaningful it would be to watch my children's hands work to make a difference in someone else's life.

They scooped and poured and measured and packaged and did it all without complaining. 

 

We cheered as we filled each box.

 

Today, in an hour-and-a-half, our crew packed 81boxes.

That's enough to feed 47 children for an entire year.

Last night my children ate until their bellies were full.

They went to bed satisfied and secure.

In the last 24 hours, 18,000 children died from hunger.

I wonder to myself, how will I ever sleep thinking about those 18,000 children,

and the 18,000 who will die tomorrow

and the day after that and the day after that...

How will I ever recover?

I hope I never do!

And I hope my children never do!

Tonight, they will go to bed satisfied and secure - again.

And tonight, we know there are 47 other children who can go to bed satisfied and maybe a little more secure.

Thanks to the efforts of FMSC, enough food will be produced tomorrow, every day in fact, to feed 420,000 more.

 

And they do it all through volunteers working a two hour shift. Visit FMSC's website to find a MobilePack near you or to host your own MobilePack.

 

Two hours is all it takes to save 47 lives.

It's a very small price to pay!

 

 

...if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

Isaiah 58:9-11

~ A Great Way To End a School Year

I started the school year with a bit of trepidation, this first year of schooling at home.

Would I remember how to teach?

It had been 22 years since I ran my own classroom.

Would my children cooperate and see and respect me as their teacher?

Would they beg to go back to their respective schools?

I knew God had called us to this. I knew He would carry us through it.

After a year of great Bible discussions, rich literature, learning a new language and beginning music training, not to mention the essentials of a great education, I have to say it feels more like starting a new life than just teaching school.

And when they say to me, "Mom, we are homeschooling again next year, right?", I breathe a deep sigh of relief, and I offer whispered prayers of gratitude for this extreme priviledge of getting to watch them become all that He wants them to be!

To celebrate the boys' hard work, we spent the last day of school at the Milwaukee Public Museum with another homeschooling family (friends of ours). We went specifically to see the butterflies as we had just ended our year studying butterflies.

It was a great ending to a great year!

~ It's Not Just DNA

It's early in the day, and we are watching our smallest busy himself about the house, making his presence known wherever he goes. He loves noise. His brothers are off playing in another part of the house when I tell my husband,

"He is sooo you!!!"

I whisper it because I never want the older boys to think they are less of daddy than their brother.

And then I wink and ask my husband if he thinks the little one will be-bop when he walks as he gets older. (That's what caught my eye when I first saw his daddy - that happy bouncy way he walked around campus when we were young and carefree.)

He laughs and says he's been noticing the same crazy bounce step in our little one that I always tease him about.

It must be in the genes.

The day rolls along. We start school and tend to our subjects, and when it's time for science, I pull out the beads and the pipe cleaners, and I help my oldest make a replica of a strand of DNA.

I look down as my hands thread the beads and I remember the morning conversation and I marvel at this carrier of genetic information I am constructing.

The day is winding down when one of my middle boys comes to me out of the blue and says in his quietest, most serious voice,

"Mom, I wish I knew what my birth dad looks like."

We have never been afraid to talk with the boys about birth moms or birth dads. In our book, they are to be honored and remembered for their incredible sacrifices and gifts. However, this comment caught me a little off-guard. Wanting to be ready to tend to this need, I cleared my throat, shook away the cobwebs on my brain from a crazy day, and I uttered the most profound thing I could think of at that moment,

"Oh really, honey? Why?"

"I want to know if I reflect him."

Just as I feel the little flutter in my heart, the one that happens when I wonder if I'm going to be able to handle this the way it needs to be handled, I hear him chuckle and he says,

"I heard that on T.V."

"You heard what on T.V.?"

"That children reflect their parents."

And just like that, something caught his attention and off he went.

No time to formulate the perfect parental response.

No time to reassure him.

No time to scoop him up in my arms.

I'm left standing there with a spatula in my hands, speechless.

As usual, I think of the perfect thing to say later that evening in the quiet, and I will say it to him when I get the chance.

I will tell him that, if it's true that children reflect their parents, his birth father must have the most beautiful dimples, the greatest smile, and the kindest eyes in the world.

And then I'll tell him all the ways he reflects his forever father.

I'll tell him, "You reflect his curiosity, his love for nature, his desire to help people and his ability to make people laugh."

And then I'll tell him all the ways I see Him reflecting his heavenly Father.

I'll remind him to never stop putting other people's needs ahead of his own and to keep loving with no expectations for himself. He's got both of those things down!

I think back on the day and I marvel at the ways a day twists and turns and all comes together.

And when I crawl into bed to find rest for the night, I have this brief thought:

There are many ways to pass things on to your children - DNA is just one of them.

~ Our Favorite Classroom

"And there was evening, and there was morning —

the fifth day."

We have spent the year exploring creation with Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.

We have studied everything we could think of that God created with wings on the fifth day of creation.

We've studied bats.

We've studied flying reptiles.

We've studied every kind of insect...

bees,

flies,

grasshoppers,

dragonflies,

and the list goes on.

But we have been saving the best for last.

We have been waiting for the birds to return to our area so we can learn about feathers and flying and nests and eggs hatching.

And then when we know all there is to know about birds, we will end the year studying butterflies (my personal favorite).

It's been a great year looking at all the ways God filled the skies on that fifth day.

We've had a lot of fun.

But the most fun we have, is when we spend the day outside watching for all the ways God's creation points to Him.

It is, by far, our favorite classroom!

(And it's how the twins chose to spend their very special family day.)

The boys discovered this rock in the creek. Apparently "love" really is all around!

Of course there are always feats of strength and challenges of skill and bravery involved.

Next year, we're studying swimming creatures of the fifth day.

Can't wait to see where that takes us!

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—

the fifth day.

Genesis 1:20-23