Imagine there’s no hunger. In the world. In the United States. In Hammonton.
Yes, Hammonton.
As every pastor in Hammonton can attest, there are people who come to our doors every day needing food: single moms living in their cars, out of work dads trying to find a way to make ends meet, older folks who are infirmed and who have used their fixed income to buy medicine instead of food, and those others who are just not able to help themselves. The need is especially great the last week of the month when support checks begin to run out. You weren’t aware?
Jesus said that the poor would always be with us. He also gave us a mandate to help the poor: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” We cannot turn a deaf ear or a blind eye when we have so much.
On October 16, the Town of Hammonton will have an opportunity to help its own. The Hammonton Area Ministerium is sponsoring a “Crop Walk”. A Crop Walk will be going on in towns all across America that day in an effort to raise money to help feed the poor across the world, and even in our own town. Our town Recreation Department has helped us lay out a route for our first Crop Walk, and those from each church who join in to help stamp to hunger will walk all or part of that route fueled by the donations of their sponsors. Our route will begin and end at St. Martin’s. And importantly, twenty-five percent of what we raise that day will be kept here in the local community to meet our needs at home. It is in this way that you can help right here.
Yes, we care about hunger in Africa, where millions of people walk long distances every day just to get water for their daily needs, to bring home food for their families, to find safe shelter, to find medical care when they are ill. WE walk because THEY walk. We are glad that we can help them too, through our walk. It is true that we close our eyes to it because the problem is so huge that we don’t believe we can help at all, but then nothing gets done. Through the Crop Walk, we can all pitch in, and out “little” can become” much” when we add it all up together.
In the last months we have put our efforts together to raise money and needed goods for disaster victims in Southeast Asia and more recently in our own country. Let’s take this opportunity to work together to help the poor in our own community. If I could name their names for you, I know they would be thankful as any disaster victim we have seen on TV – because poverty is a disaster. Maybe we can’t stamp out hunger in the world, but just maybe we can alleviate hunger in our own backyard.