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.