These food vouchers are our daily bread
September 23, 2019
Quarterly highlights – Q3 2019
October 4, 2019Give them this day their daily food
It has been nine years. Nine years of crisis in Syria. Nine years of displacements. We hear more and more people say: “it is safer now, why don’t they go back? Even if we give them food today, they will still need food tomorrow”. Precisely! They will still need food tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. Just like we all need God’s sustaining grace day after day, they need our renewed support month after month.
Day after day, they need food
Imagine you have to leave your war-torn hometown for what you think will only be a couple of months. You cannot take much. You seek refuge in another city or in a neighboring country. You cannot work or, if you can, very precariously. You still have a little bit of savings on which you live for a couple of months. Months turn into years as you watch your savings disappear and your debt grow. You have no choice: you send your children to work or there won’t be any food on the table this month.
This is the sad reality that many displaced families in the Middle East are experiencing. As discouraging as it seems to keep supporting them with food, they still need help to feed their children every month. Just like we all need God’s sustaining grace and wisdom in our lives every day.
Day after day, God is faithful
God gives us all we need and much more. In turn, we want to give back to the most destitute around us, so they can rest assured that even though it seems dark around them, God has not forgotten them.
This is why we work through churches who, by providing unconditional assistance, are living witnesses of God’s love for all. The food boxes or vouchers they distribute to around 4,000 families are monthly reminders that indeed, God is faithful.
And the assistance has a transforming impact, sometimes even enabling families to send their children to school again.
> Read 11-year-old Fayçal’ story
“These food vouchers really are our daily bread”
Hassan is a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, where he lives with his two sons and his deaf and mute sister. Because he was badly injured in his leg, he cannot do any physical work and earns little to no income at all. As if that was not enough already, his wife recently passed away from a heart attack.
When hearing about his situation, one of MERATH church partners started to help him by giving him food vouchers every month, with which he is able to shop his own food at the local supermarket and to feed his family. Hassan says the Pastor even brings him food in person if the family needs additional help.
These food vouchers really are our daily bread. Our life would be much harder without them. All in all, I thank God for the church and that I’m still alive to be there for my young kids.
