Two boys about the ages of 8 and 10 walked up to the warehouse where we were packing food. They were kicked rocks from the gravel as they walked. Their clothes were a tattered and dirty, but that could have been because they were 8 and 10 year-old boys. A wire-haired dog followed, panting behind them, walking on a homemade rope leash. It seemed like a normal afternoon for the motley crew, and the warehouse was just a stop in their everyday routine. They asked the man in charge for some food and water, to which he gave them some snacks from a nearby box. After the dog got some water, they were back on their way, leaving kicked up dust behind them.
Those were the first faces I had seen that linked the service we were doing to the people we were helping. Every week, hundreds of meals are packed and distributed in schools to kids who otherwise wouldn’t have food to eat on the weekends. Seeing the faces of those boys had a larger impact than hearing about a hundred. One day I hope to have the chance to distribute the meals to the children and see the faces of the hundred.
Once a month, the Lettie Pate Whitehead scholars volunteer at the Bagwell food pantry in Rome, Georgia. Through the collaboration with other volunteer groups, Bagwell Food Pantry is able to serve 30-40 local families each day. Annually, the food pantry distributes more than 500,000 pounds of food.
People have this idea that hunger is a distant problem. Third world countries have hunger. War-torn countries have hunger. Countries ruled by corrupt dictators and unstable governments have hunger. People develop this belief that in order to help these people in hunger that they have to go to these foreign places. Of course these places need help, but people forget that this problem is not distant.
According to Feeding America, 48.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households, which includes 32.8 million adults and 15.3 million children. This is 14 percent of American households. The top five states with the highest household food insecurity rates are from the South, right in our own backyard.
I recently read an article titled "7 Reasons Why Your Two Week Trip To Haiti Doesn’t Matter: Calling Bull on “Service Trips.” Although I have mixed opinions on the article, one part of it was very eye opening:
Two weeks on a medical trip to Tanzania can cost you $3,040, not including airfare, which is roughly $2,000. If six people go on this two week trip, that’s more than enough money to pay for a local doctor’s annual salary. Let that sink in.
According to Dr. Robert Priest, a missiology professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, more than 1.5 million Americans take part in short term mission trips annually, spending more than $2 billion on these trips.
After looking at the cost of international missions, there should be a reevaluation of the value of short-term mission trips. The debate over the effectiveness of short-term mission trips, sometimes dubbed ‘Voluntourism’, is for a different article, but the problem is the mentality that international missions is the only way to make a difference.
Every community has the need for volunteers for organizations of all kinds. Maybe we overlook local missions because they are less glamorous, less extravagant, and seem less important. But local missions are the most valuable kinds of missions. To make a difference in the world, we have to start with our own community.
We often reference Acts 1:8 when talking about missions; “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” We focus on the ‘ends of the earth’ but we must not overlook Jerusalem.
For ways you can help Action Ministries in Rome, visit http://actionministries.net/locations/rome/program...
