"The Bread of Life"

 “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”  These words were spoken by Mahatma Gandhi. They are words that describe the children of the Oko Baba Destutute Camp in Lagos, Nigeria. Oko Baba is a place that I first visited a few years as I ministered in Africa. It offers housing to those that are lepers, lame, and blind mingled together in a compound that was was established over 17 years ago by the then military regime of Nigeria. It is crowded with hundreds of children born to parents of poverty and disease. The people are mostly from the northern regions of Nigeria and speak the Hausa language.

We arrived in the heat of the afternoon with hundreds of take-away containers filled with a nice meal complete with rice and pieces of fish. Pastor Abandy of the young church in the fishing village of Makoko had employed his wife and one of the church ladies to prepare a delicious meal for this large crowd of forgotten men, women and children. We had received funds from local buisinesses and Christians in our hometown of Middleburg, Florida. We used the donations to purchase the food and supplies. We travelled from over 12,000 miles away to spend this one afternoon and evening sharing the love of God with these precious people.

After a time of welcoming us into the camp, the meals were distributed. We arranged to show the "Jesus Film" to this vastly Muslim crowd. The crowd stood in the dark near the entrance of the camp. When the opportunity was given, over 200 people raised their hands with a decisive "YES" to receive Christ as their Savior. What a joy it was to represent our Lord Jesus Christ! What a thrill it was to carry the gift of mercy from our little place in northeast Florida to Oko Baba! How thankful I was to share what Jesus had done for me with this crowd blinded by Islam and vain religion. God did appear unto these poverty-stricken muslims in the form of bread. He appeared in their heart that evening as the "Bread of Life".

"EBUN OLUWA" - Gift of God

Many years ago, as I travelled along the Ayetoro Road in Abeokuta, Nigeria, I happened upon a destitute girl that lay prostrate beside the dirty, busy road. According to nearby residents she had been abandoned by a witch doctor that had intended to use her sickly body as a human sacrifice. Realizing that she was nearly lifeless this prophet of hell discarded her upon the roadside from the back seat of his vehicle and sped into the darkness. The young girl, petrified by the incident and unable to gather any strength, lied quietly through the evening in her pitiful state. The next morning while people rushed off to work in this West African town, few stopped to see the hardships of this delicate girl. They found it better to consume their minds with their personal struggles, than to be detained in the tragedy of a total stranger.

One of my early converts and I, from the small church I had founded, picked up her disheveled, weary body and carried her to a distant hospital. Here she was admitted and they began to treat her for starvation and dehydration. The little pre-teen girl did not speak and had eyes sunken into her head that spoke of pain and woe. She had no known family to rush to her side. She had a humble past and an uncertain future.

Over the next twelve months she was nursed back to health by the fine nurses at this obscure hospital. She was then taken to a local state-run orphanage where she would spend the remainder of her childhood. We designated a name for her that described our part in the rescue of this little girl. That name in the Yoruba language was “Ebun Oluwa”, or “the gift of God”. Years later Ebun passed away while living at the orphanage. She will never be forgotten. My love and admiration for her charm and inner strength continues to shape my thoughts. It inspires my resolve to help others whose lives have been cast away by the world.

I have used her memory, and the memory of other hopeless African children, to lead me in the establishment of this “Feeding and Reaching Outreach”. Our goal is not simply to relieve the hunger of the body, but also the hunger within, the hunger of the soul. We have found that when we share a bowl of rice and maybe a portion of fish with a child or an adult in need, it opens the path for us to meet an eternal need as well. It has been well said, “People do not care how much we know, until they know how much we care”. While our members through their charitable giving provide meals, they also provide a message. That message is one of love for a hurting body and soul. Malachi 8 speaks of a famine sent by God to a people that would not have a physical consequence, but a spiritual and eternal one. The objective of this outreach is to reach a hungry continent for God.