This Sunday, September 8, congregations throughout the ELCA will be taking part in “God’s Work. Our Hands” Sunday, where they are encouraged to engage in a service activity in their neighborhood or surrounding community.

Which got me thinking: in ELCA World Hunger we get to hear some wonderful stories from congregations, synod teams and other groups in the ELCA who are moved by their faith to respond to alleviate hunger and poverty in their communities. These stories, communicated through blogs, newsletters, or word-of-mouth, remind us that the work of ELCA World Hunger is geographically diverse and often happens without much fanfare.

But telling these stories is also witnessing to how God is at work among us. Jonathan Trapp of Southeastern Synod’s Hunger, Poverty and Justice Task Force stated this well following the ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering in Des Moines:

If we are in an environment where people are talking about the ways they see God at work, we will begin to look around and remember that God is faithful to God’s promises and ever-present and active in the world.  But if we don’t tell our stories and proclaim the good news that is our stories, people may not see God’s work. Despair can set in and faith can be lost.

Sharing the story is witnessing to the work of God. So we want to hear from you. Whether you have plans for engaging in anti-hunger or anti-poverty efforts for this Sunday, or have  blog or ongoing efforts that you would like others to know about, like Welcome to the Table in Southwest Idaho, we want to know what’s going on out there in the world of ELCA World Hunger. We know God is doing great work through you. Let us know by emailing your stories, blogs or pictures to us at hunger@elca.org.

Henry Martinez serves as an associate for hunger education in ELCA World Hunger.

By Justin Rabbach

Have you been looking for a way to engage groups and enhance volunteer activities? Check out this new resource from ELCA World Hunger!

Digging In: A Leader’s Guide to Service Learning is designed to help you plan your next service opportunity. This guide was developed in consultation with the Service and Learning Leadership Team, a group that has studied and worked on developing meaningful service learning experiences.  This guide is organized into four steps (Preparation, Action, Reflection and Celebration) and will walk you through how to make the most out of your group’s service project. Using this model will help guide your group to dig into the deeper learning that service opportunities have to offer. You will learn how to apply what you learn in other contexts, and how to share your learning with your congregation.

In addition to the leader’s guide, placemat resources have been developed that act as a worksheet and summarize the work of ELCA World Hunger. The placemat highlights areas of work and the comprehensive approach ELCA World Hunger uses to address the root causes of hunger and poverty. Then, flip it over and each participant can walk through the four steps of service learning as it applies to the specific service opportunity. Together with the field guide this resource is a great way to prepare for your activity, and to have a tangible reflection piece that will help you to share about your experience and how it relates to the collective work of the church to eradicate hunger and poverty through ELCA World Hunger. Order or download it now on the resource store at elca.org/hunger!

Justin Rabbach is the Youth Group Organizer for ELCA World Hunger.

We’ve asked Ryan Cumming, new Director for Hunger Education to introduce himself. Welcome Ryan!

I should tell you from the outset that I’m not very good at autobiography. When doing research, we are trained to remove ourselves as much as possible from our writing – to be objective or detached. Of course, that’s never really the case.  It’s not even ideal. Detached work of any kind is passionless work.  The most compelling work – whether it is writing or any other type – is the work shaped by personal experience, by the story of a person called to it.  (On this, I highly recommend the recent book Theologians in Their Own Words by Derek Nelson, Joshua Moritz, and Ted Peters.) As I have begun my new position as Director for Hunger Education for ELCA World Hunger, the most interesting part of my job has been listening to the stories of the hard-working, passionate people with whom I work. All of my colleagues bring their experiences, wisdom, and faith to bear on their work for the church, and I am fortunate to count myself among them.  Each of us has followed a different path that has led us to work in the church as community organizers, fundraisers, networkers, educators, pastors, and so on.

Maybe my story might include the various jobs I have had, from truck driver to factory worker to movie extra to college professor. None of these roles, though, is quite as important as the moment I “discovered” faith at Capital University, which might sound odd coming from a lifelong Lutheran involved in church activities since childhood. At “Cap,” I saw a faith that was far from comforting.  It was challenging, it refused to give all of the answers. This was a faith that accepted tension and that forced me to wrestle with it. It was the faith of St. Augustine, writing his Confessions, or Martin Luther making his stand. This Lutheran faith pulls us into a world filled with ambiguity, anguish, suffering, and injustice and tells us, “Find grace. It is here.”

In my work, it is impossible to ignore the sin that allows millions to suffer and die from lack of food or clean water or medicine. But it is equally impossible to ignore the grace that moves congregations to serve meals, that shapes our public advocacy, that supports new mission starts and global and local initiatives to confront suffering effectively.  This work is done by folks with diverse stories, who are drawn together by their faith and their commitment to accompany one another in confronting despair with hope, anguish with relief, marginalization with solidarity, and the reality of sin with the power of grace.  I am blessed to be part of our work together, and I look forward to hearing your stories and sharing in the work God does with our hands.

Ryan Cumming is the Director of Hunger Education for ELCA World Hunger.

By Brittani Lamb

As my time at ELCA World Hunger comes to a close, I’ve been thinking a lot about what this experience has meant to me. I decided to do this internship not only because it complements my social work education well, but also because I wanted to strengthen my connection to the church. As a life-long Lutheran, I’ve never been too far from the church. I was an active participant in my home congregation and synod growing up. I attended the National Youth Gathering in New Orleans and went as a voting delegate to the Churchwide Assembly in 2009. I chose St. Olaf in part because it is a Lutheran college. I also worked at a Lutheran camp for two summers. I strongly believe my life has only been enriched by these experiences, but I still felt there was a piece missing in my spiritual life.

I’m sure many of you have read the recent CNN article that has gone viral on Facebook and other sites titled “Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church.” While I am not one of the millennials who is leaving, I do see many connections in this article to my own feelings towards the church and the things I see among my peers. One thing that stood out to me the most was this: “We’re not leaving the church because we don’t find the cool factor there; we’re leaving the church because we don’t find Jesus there.” While I don’t agree with this statement, I definitely know of people who do. I have been blessed with rich opportunities such as this internship and others that have given me a chance to truly see Jesus in the church, but I can see how others don’t. There are places in the church where we don’t always act in a way Jesus would have.

One thing my generation (and others who are leaving the church) really wants to see is the justice that Jesus lived out. This is the piece that I felt was missing from my spirituality. Now, I have made that connection through ELCA World Hunger. This summer I have seen and become involved in what the church is doing to work for justice in the United States and across the world. I have also seen how things that don’t seem directly connected to justice (like fundraising or sitting in a cubicle responding to emails all day) are integral to justice work and equally important. Something I really appreciate about the church that I have seen here this summer is that everyone has the attitude that they are working for and with the church and are a part of God’s work. It is truly inspiring to see people living out their vocation every day.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has supported me this summer and all those who support ELCA World Hunger. Working here has truly been a blessing and I can’t wait to see where this experience leads me next!

This is Brittani  Lamb’s final post as an intern for ELCA World Hunger.

By Jesse McClain

Have you ever thought about the limitations and struggles of depending on government assistance programs? A new report from the Associated Press concluded that four out of five adults in the United States will struggle with unemployment, near poverty, and reliance on welfare programs at some point in their lives. This means that roughly 80% of neighbors, coworkers, family members and friends will have a story of living in poverty, a story of pain, and a story they don’t know how to start telling.

One of my main tasks this summer as an ELCA World Hunger Intern was to assist our team in the logistic planning of the ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering (ELCA WHLG). On the opening night of the ELCA WHLG our group gathered to watch the documentary A Place at the Table. If you haven’t had a chance to watch the movie– do it! I think the film allows for some great discussion about hunger and poverty in America. (You can buy the movie for $15 on Amazon as well a ton a free resources on the movies website if you want to show the movie at a church event.)

Barbie Izquierdo was one of the people whose story featured in the documentary. She is a single mother trying to make her way and feed her kids. Barbie joined us at the ELCA WHLG and represents the story of so many people in the U.S. who struggle to eat within the limited confines of little to no income and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan (SNAP). The average SNAP allocation is just around $4.50 per day on food, which is not enough for most people to get everything their body needs to be healthy.

The movie and Barbie’s presentation at WHLG hit very close to home. I grew up in a very poor home with a single parent who couldn’t make ends meet on her own. We often relied on the immediate relief programs available in my community for food, rent, and other utilities. My mom worked full time at Big Lots and made a little too much to receive SNAP, but barely made enough to survive. During the school year my younger brother and I would eat two free meals at school and eat dinner at home, so we were able to just scrape by. We struggled the most in the summers because my mom was suddenly responsible for three meals a day for two growing boys. Most summers we would only have a package of corn tortillas, lettuce, and ranch dressing in our fridge. We would heat up a tortilla, stuff it with lettuce and some ranch and called it summer tacos. That is all we would eat most days. To me that was normal. My family never had money to worry about eating healthy; we ate what we could afford.

At the end of the film Barbie gives a speech where she says, “You are where you come from.” My mom grew up in a similar situation as my brother and I did. She never graduated high school and had to work from a very early age to survive. Statistically, I should be heading down the same path. It was the love and work of the church that sent me down a different path that would break the chain. It was the after school programs in my home congregation that took me to visit colleges and pushed me to do well in school. It was the assistance given to my family in our worst times to get back on our feet. It was the constant love and support given to us by our congregation. I now sit here as a college graduate with so many amazing opportunities in front of me. The chain has been broken.

There are ways to end hunger and poverty. There is a feasible end goal. We as a church have the opportunity to fight hunger and be part of breaking the chain with and for so many in our nation and abroad.

Want to learn more about what the experience of the SNAP program would be like? ELCA World Hunger is currently producing “Food for a Week,” which is a hunger simulation that will give participants a better view into the SNAP application process and how much food can actually be purchased with SNAP benefits. This program will roll out on ELCA World Hunger website in the next couple months.

Jesse is an intern with ELCA World Hunger.

Running for Hunger!

By Brittani Lamb

I ran a 5K last Sunday to raise money for a local food shelf in Elmhurst, IL. It was a fun race and because of generous sponsors, all the money from participants’ race entry fees went directly to the food shelf and we raised over $20,000. That’s a pretty big chunk of change for a small food shelf, so it was quite exciting for both the organizers and the participants! I was very happy to be a part of the event.

However, I couldn’t help but remember Bishop Hanson’s call to hunger leaders at the recent ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering in Des Moines, Iowa. He thanked us for being marathon runners, because the fight against hunger is not a sprint. We will not end hunger with one food drive – it will take a long term commitment.

Now, I know not everyone thinks of 3.1 miles as a sprint, but compared to a marathon it is relatively short! In a way, volunteering time or giving money to food shelves is also a sprint. Food shelves provide individuals and families an important and immediate need and can be a good opportunity for education and advocacy. They can also be a great way to get people introduced to hunger issues, just as 5Ks are often a starting point for people who hope to someday run a longer race.

Food shelves are just one of the many responses of addressing hunger. In order to become a marathon runner for hunger, it is important to take the bigger picture into account. Once people have run their first 5K (or had their first food drive), then they can become a marathon runner by moving into advocacy, education and development.

But how do we do this? Education is a great place to start. It’s easier to get people involved once they know more. ELCA World Hunger has many great resources available to help with education in your congregation, community or synod. Advocacy is also something people can get involved in. Write letters to your representatives or work with private companies to ensure that their policies consider people who are at an economic disadvantage. Finally, work towards sustainability. Sustainable development doesn’t happen overnight, but with a marathon commitment. We have to make sure that all the relief, education and advocacy work we do is viable in the long run (no pun intended there!). Check out the ELCA World Hunger website to learn more about relief and sustainable development. The Young Adults in Global Mission also has an eye toward development in their service and learning opportunity.

How have you worked to train sprinters to become marathon runners? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments!

Brittani Lamb is an intern with ELCA World Hunger.

By Brittani Lamb

One thing that struck me in the book When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself is the author’s statement that “one of the biggest mistakes that North American churches make – by far – is applying relief in situations in which rehabilitation or development is the appropriate intervention” (p. 101). It made me think – of all the service projects and volunteer opportunities I participated in through my church growing up, how many were something other than relief? Of course, there is definitely a time and place for relief. But how many meals do we need to serve at a soup kitchen before we do something more about hunger in our community?

One of the most memorable service projects I participated in was cleaning up the water-filled ditches of New Orleans’ St. Bernard Parish in 2009.  The waterways were still filled with debris from Hurricane Katrina four years earlier. It was amazing because we were able to make so much visible progress and the residents of the neighborhood were very appreciative. Many came out of their homes to thank us and tell their stories. But looking back, I have to wonder – could we have done something else that would’ve been more helpful? What we did was essentially relief. I feel fairly confident that what we did didn’t hurt anyone, per se, but was cleaning out the ditch what they needed from us? How could we have involved the people of the neighborhood more? We did do some research about New Orleans beforehand and heard several people’s stories about their experience with Katrina. However, as far as I know, we didn’t ask people what their needs were or include them in our service.  

I think service learning is a great way to make sure we aren’t applying relief when rehabilitation or development would be more appropriate. The Service and Learning leadership team based out of Trinity Lutheran College has integrated a four step learning process with service learning. This process of Preparation-Action-Reflection-Celebration really resonates with me. Laying some groundwork before an experience and doing some intentional processing afterward make for an amazing growth experience. Furthermore, meaningful preparation that goes beyond planning logistics makes a big difference in the attitudes toward a service opportunity. I like the idea of creating goals and assessing strengths, both within the group who is doing the service and the group or individual they plan to work with. That makes the action of service that much more meaningful and enables participants to be intentional about their involvement and find meaning in tasks that can seem meaningless, like pulling garbage out of a pond. I think the “seeking God’s presence” component of the action step of service learning is one of the best parts. If we are really supposed to be doing God’s work with our hands, we should think about how we are doing that! Beyond the service, the reflection and celebration steps of service learning really enhance the experience. Processing the service through the lens of scripture and the goals that were set ahead of time can be a deeply meaningful way to think about how the experience will shape your future actions and beliefs. Finally, celebrating and sharing the experience with partners and the congregation is another step of processing and learning. The more people who hear about the service as a learning experience, the more people start to understand the bigger picture and what service and helping should be, which is not always relief!

Brittani Lamb is an intern for ELCA World Hunger.

Recently we welcomed Rich Duncan as the Director of Mission Funding for the ELCA. We invited him to introduce himself on a guest blog post. Welcome Rich!

“Welcome to Chicago!”  was the emphatic greeting I was welcomed with just a few weeks ago when I arrived  from western North Carolina.  As the new Director of Mission Funding for the ELCA, I was overwhelmed by people excited to share their passion for the ministries of our church. I have never been around a more committed and motivated team of people drawn together, united in their mission to make a difference in the world.

I wish every Lutheran could walk in my shoes at the churchwide offices for one week to see all the outreach both domestically and globally: to see the immediate and compassionate response to victims of tornadoes in the Midwest, to see the impact in the lives of volunteers that went to Africa, to see our work combating malaria and hunger in multiple countries, to hear the excitement and exuberance in the voice of a pastor of a new start congregation, to see pictures and hear the stories of a young adult in global mission sharing Christ’s story and serving others in urban and remote areas of the world, to write a letter to a seminarian congratulating them on being awarded full tuition scholarship….

If every Lutheran could see and experience the incredible scope of what their church does for others, these humble Lutherans would boldly shout from the rooftops, “THIS IS MY CHURCH!” with the same pride experienced as a parent for his or her child.

One amazing thing our church does is help feed the hungry, while also addressing socio-economic issues connected to hunger. So many of us are blessed with abundance (enough money to buy what we eat; enough variety of food to make healthy choices), so it is hard to imagine being hungry for days on end. It is hard for us to imagine how much it costs for others around the world to feed themselves. When I saw this photo essay on the ELCA Wellness Facebook page, it emphasized for me our blessings and abundance compared to others.  So it is after viewing this that I ask you to share your abundance, share your faith, share your love for your church, remembering that the ELCA not only works to feed the hungry, but also works to end the systemic reasons why people go hungry.

We’re excited to have our new interns. They will be blogging periodically throughout the summer, but for now we’ve asked them to introduce themselves.

Hi all! My name is Brittani Lamb and I am an ELCA World Hunger intern this summer. I will mostly be focusing on projects that involve the youth of the ELCA. I am originally from St. Peter, Minnesota and now attend St. Olaf College in Northfield, where I will graduate next spring with a degree in Social Work. Through my coursework I learned how to act on the great passion I have for social justice and how to work to address issues like poverty and hunger.  I knew the ELCA would be a great place to put my new knowledge into practice. I got involved in the larger church in high school when I became a member and then president of my synod’s Lutheran Youth Organization board. As I attended national youth events and learned more about the structure and mission of the ELCA, I discovered that church is so much more than just a service on Sunday! People who work in the ELCA truly see their positions as a way to fulfill their personal vocations and as a way to serve God and the Church. I am excited to be a part of a group that is so enthusiastic about doing God’s work in our world and also learning more about addressing hunger and poverty through relief, education, advocacy and development.

I’m Jesse McClain, intern for ELCA World Hunger. I finished my B.A in Political Science from California Lutheran University in May 2013. I grew up in Hemet, CA and went to school in Thousand Oaks, CA. In high school my mom served as a case manager for a small homeless shelter in my hometown. Through her work there my family was very involved in the day-to-day operations of the shelter and it was my second home. During this time I began to see that the world was so much bigger than just me. It was also the first time I experienced and witnessed how much help the world needed. My passion is for justice and I fight for that with love. I am excited to be part of the ELCA World Hunger team and explore more ways to get involved and help our brothers and sisters around the world. Although it might seem overwhelming, hunger and poverty can end, but it takes passion, tenacity, and a human soul on fire to succeed. I know I can’t change the world alone and the work I do will only make a small dent- but the beauty of a church that works together is that a bunch of small dents makes one giant dent to end some of the suffering in the world, and that is why I am so thrilled to be part of this team!

Hi, my name is Clara Ranaivoson and I am the summer intern for the ELCA Malaria Campaign. I am originally from Madagascar, but I grew up in Papua New Guinea, England, Kenya, and the USA. My father, Mamy Ranaivoson, served as the Program Assistant for the Health Ministry of the ELCA Global Mission and the Regional Coordinator for the HIV/AIDs program for the Lutheran World Federation in Africa. Through his work and my experiences living overseas, I discovered my interest in health project implementation and its role in the alleviation of poverty. Thus, I am interested in pursuing a career in public health or one in the medical field. Currently, I attend Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN where I plan to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in biology next May. I am thrilled and grateful for this opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of health project implementation and the church’s role in it, and to discover if a career in public health is well suited to my strengths and interests.

Vegetables in a greenhouse, ready to go in the planted. Angelic Organics, Caledonia, IL, April 12, 2013.

It’s hard to talk about food and hunger without considering its growth and production. This year, much of the United States has experienced an extended winter and greater precipitation which has resulted in a delayed planting season. This of course is a far different story than last year, where drought took hold throughout much of the country.

The USDA has released some interesting data compairing the percentage of crops in the ground this year to last year at the same time (as well as averages over the past four years). For example, 18 states (which planted 92% of corn acreage in 2012) had an average of 26% of their corn crop in the ground at this time last year. This year farmers have planted an average of 4% of their corn. The biggest difference in the example of corn is Illinois, which had 56% of its corn crop in the ground by April 21 last year and only 1% in the ground this year.

As far as what this means for food prices, insurance, and other matters, I’ll leave that to the experts. For those of you who are professionals in this area, please feel free to comment, we’d love to hear from you. In a brief story on Harvest Public Media one farmer comments:

“It’s just crazy that one year is one way and one is another,” Smart said. “But we’ve had this before so we’ll have it again. And as I said, we don’t have to go to Las Vegas to gamble because farming is the biggest gamble there is.”

I’ve easily made the connection that farming is providing food, but the farming and gambling connection has been more on the periphery. But after considering it, I hope to appreciate the fruits of the labor, calculation, or guess even more.   

Henry Martinez serves as an educational associate for ELCA World Hunger.