Last night at Feed My Starving Children, during a packing
session a mom pulled me aside and pointed out three teenaged girls. The girls were originally from Haiti and were
adopted from a Haitian orphanage a few years ago. Now they live locally.
The mom was so eager to tell me about her girls and their
adoption and as the story went on I discovered why she was so excited to share. At the orphanage where the girls had lived,
they ate food packaged at FMSC. It’s
very probable that those girls would not have survived if it hadn’t been for
the food they ate that had been packaged by volunteers in the U.S. and sent to
Haiti.
Now the girls love to come and pack food. They remember eating the food and they
remember how much they liked eating it.
They liked eating because it tasted good, but they liked it even more
because it was something to eat when many kids in Haiti often have very little
to eat. I didn’t get to have a long
conversation with the girls because they were busy packing food and having fun
with family and friends, but I could see they were more than happy to be
packing food.
Coming to pack food is a way for these girls to pay things
forward- volunteers packed food for them a few years back and now they are
packing food for other kids. It’s the
only way they could possibly give thanks for the food they received. Now they have a chance to help feed kids in
Haiti and dozens of other countries around the world- something they probably
never thought they’d be able to do.
Every time I walked past their table during the packing
session I watched in wonder as those three teen girls packing the food that
gave them life in Haiti and is now giving them life in a different way.
The mission of FMSC is “Feeding God’s Starving Children
Hungry in Body and Spirit”. This is what
we are about. This is why we exist.
These girls were fed in body when they daily ate the food at
the orphanage in Haiti. And now, every
time the girls come to pack food at FMSC their spirits are fed. They have the opportunity to pay it forward,
to give thanks for the food and all the opportunities they were given, and to
make a difference for kids around the world in a profound way.
It’s not very often that one person fulfills both parts of
the FMSC mission, but it’s pretty incredible when it does happen.
