Feed My Starving Children

Last night I had the opportunity to give service at an organization called Feed My Starving Children. A few women from church and I, along with at least fifty teenagers and young adults, measured, scooped, sealed, and packed dry baby food that will be sent to malnourished children all over the world. The boxes our table packed will be sent to Burkina Faso, a country in west Africa.



I was a little late and missed the video that introduced the procedures. One of the friends I went with mentioned that they said they would pray over the food at the end of the night. The Spirit whispered to me that when the time came, I would say that prayer.

After an hour of combining powdered soy, sweet potato, and white potato, we were told to clean up and gather in the warehouse. Again the Holy Ghost told me that I needed to give voice to that prayer. We looked at the eighty-nine boxes we had just packed between us, a total of 38,448 servings of baby food. The woman in charge of the warehouse said that we would pray that the food would arrive in safety, much of it going to dangerous and war-torn parts of the world. She also asked that we pray for the children it would go to, both for their physical well-being and their spiritual health. She said to remember those that gave of their time to prepare the food and those larger organizations that helped this charity function. Then she asked for a volunteer to pray.

My hand shot high in the air.

When we walked in that night, I had noticed that many of the volunteers were wearing black shirts naming the club or group they were representing. There were also many high school athletes dressed in orange to show school spirit. I was the only person in the room wearing a hot pink sweater. Maybe that's why the woman in charge saw me as soon as my hand went up.

In my extra-loud theatre voice, loud enough to be heard by all those people in that spacious warehouse, I said the prayer. I had taken extra care to note each group I needed to remember and I felt the Spirit as I prayed. Afterward, a woman that I didn't know walked up to me and said, "That was lovely. That's hard, giving a public prayer. You have the gift." I was gracious and thanked her.

She walked away before I could tell her that in our church everybody has the chance to pray publicly starting at a very young age. We learn the language of prayer, the reverence of prayer, and the vital importance of daily communication with our loving Heavenly Father. She was sweet to compliment me, but my prayer was simply a result of thirty-five years of daily talking, both publicly and privately, with my Father in Heaven.