Coronavirus Causes Severe Crisis for Children

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This is a long post about a serious situation, so here's a summary: 

Many people are literally starving in Honduras now, because the coronavirus lockdown has kept them from working for over two months! Sowers4Pastors normally feeds around 14,000 children twice weekly - but the need has grown exponentially beyond that. To purchase additional food, so that more people can be fed much more frequently, additional funds are urgently needed! (Details in the post below.)

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All over Honduras, people are going hungry, because they do not have the resources to buy or grow food. In a country where so many people were already walking an economic tightrope to survive, this situation is beyond serious - it is devastating! Honduras has currently been on lockdown for 50+ days. People are completely out of resources. This is obviously a huge prayer request. It’s also an opportunity for those of us that are not worried about where our next meal will come from to step up and do the right thing.

Through social media, Trish is able to keep tabs on other missionaries throughout Honduras. In most every case, no matter what the missionary does in their regular ministry, right now they are buying food and giving it away. That’s how great the need is. Most of these ministries are working hard to feed several hundred people in their area.

The situation with Sowers4Pastors is different because their regular ministry already deals with feeding people. They already have a system in place. That system is currently straining to keep up with the increased needs.

On any given day, Sowers4Pastors operates four different types of feeding programs. The Manna 4 Lempira program feeds kids twice a week through a local church. Besides the spiritual aspect, the goal of the program is to stave off malnourishment. The food emphasis is about getting the kids’ nutrition up to an appropriate level. The sister church programs operate in much the same way, except they are run by local pastors out of the public schools. The general feeding centers, run by pastors in their churches, provide for kids who aren't in a location with a sponsorship program. In the past, much of the money for those centers has come from the sponsorship program. There is a fourth type of feeding program, which rarely gets a mention.

The emergency feeding program is utilized to feed those in dire need, on a case by case basis. One time it fed a community that was hard hit by an earthquake. Once it fed children in a time the Honduran government and the U.N. estimated that there were 1500 children who were at imminent risk of starving to death. During both of those emergencies, Sowers4Pastors provided people with one meal a day for 100 days. More often, the emergency fund is used to feed one family at a time that has been brought to the Sowers’ attention by a local pastor.

With four levels of feeding programs already up and running, Sowers4Pastors is uniquely qualified to offer assistance. In that mixture of ministries, they were already feeding more than 14,000 kids on a regular basis. But now the balance has shifted and the emergency feeding program has skyrocketed to the top of the list. This is obviously causing Sowers4Pastors to refocus their energies and try to do more, given the current emergency situation.

The program has shifted from a focus of staving off malnourishment to the focus of helping those with food insecurity. Trish was hesitant to use the word “starvation” since that is a medical term. When you come right down to it, “food insecurity” that can result in ultimate loss of life looks an awful lot like starvation. Prior to this, there was never a time when Sowers4Pastors was trying to prevent profound food insecurity on an ongoing basis. Now, many people do not know where the food is coming from for their next meal. They don’t know when that next meal might be. They are in a cycle that might best be described as “intermittent starvation.” (Eat when you can. Go hungry when you can’t.) The needs have multiplied and the ministry’s operational structure is not set up for this.

The issues of feeding the malnourished and feeding those at risk of starvation are different. Sowers4Pastors is trying to pinpoint the amount of help that will be appropriate to give a specific family or community. As Trish said, “When the level of need is this great, and resources are limited, you have to be strategic. If you overgive in one place, you can’t help as many people.”

The ministry is very concerned about good stewardship and cost-effectiveness. In previous blog posts, Allen had predicted that they would have trouble getting food for the feeding programs. Those predictions have been confirmed. The organization that usually provides Sowers4Pastors with food has not been able to package food in months. At the same time, they have requests coming in from all over the world. There are widespread needs because of Covid-19 and the locust plague in East Africa, plus massively increased need within the US. The organization is no longer accepting new requests for food assistance. Sowers4Pastors has been receiving food from this organization for 14 years. They have been told to expect that it will be at least a year before they receive a shipment. Given the current situation, it could be much longer than that.

Sowers4Pastors currently has enough food to feed kids in their pre-coronavirus amounts for about three months. Because of the increased need, Allen speculates that they have, at most, a two-month supply.

Even in a time of crisis, they can’t simply put the cheapest food on the plate and do an appropriate job. Allen and Kim Hall have been researching to find the least expensive, most nutritious food available locally. That appears to be fortified oatmeal. If you’re not familiar with fortified oatmeal, that’s because it’s not readily available in the U.S. This may be something that Quaker Oats sells in only those countries with the greatest risk of malnutrition. The good thing about the oatmeal is that it’s a food the people are familiar with and will eat.

The feeding centers currently use a mixture of rice, soy, vegetables, and vitamin powder. Sowers4Pastors was paying between 1-2 cents per meal to get it transported and distributed. The best estimate is that oatmeal will cost ten cents a meal. As you can see, this price difference can mean one of two things: 1) Raise a lot more money, or 2) Feed fewer people. There’s really no choice when it comes to doing the right thing. Basically, kids are at risk of starving to death unless additional funds are raised.

Even if the number of meals served at the feeding centers stayed the same, that would mean an increase of $0.02-$0.04 per week/per child and $0.20 per week/per child. And no one wants to try to live off of a nutritional supplement twice a week. To be most effective, the volume should increase to one meal per day.

One of the goals of the sponsorship program was always to help fund the feeding of kids from 120 other locations where there is no sponsorship program. Those pastors are showing up regularly now, to pick up food. There’s even a steady stream of pastors who used to run feeding centers, but stepped away from it because they no longer wanted or needed to do so, who are now asking to start up again. Allen and Trish stress that feeding the sponsored children will be their highest priority, as part of their commitment to the sponsors. Without a dramatic increase in funds, that will mean less for the others.

Some people have offered donations of items such as rice and beans. While those foods don’t contain the vitamins needed to stave off malnutrition, it is possible that Sowers4Pastors will be looking at providing kids with 2 meals of fortified oatmeal and five meals of rice and beans each week. While much is unknown, this much is certain: The cost of food is increasing 10x and the need for food is increasing astronomically.

There is a profound need for people to donate to the feeding programs. Allen is continuing to think outside of the box and explore options for getting food shipped to Honduras. He is hoping to be able to set up some social distancing food packing events in the U.S. and fill a shipping container. People would donate money to pack a certain amount of food. If you are interested in this, you can reach out to Allen or Trish. With the restrictions in the U.S, the earliest this could happen would probably be August or September.

The problem is that if a container is filled and shipped in August, it will arrive in late September. The current food supply will not last beyond July 15th. Sowers4Pastors is trying to feed 20,000 kids for an undetermined amount of time. Unlike the U.S., which has pumped in trillions of dollars toward coronavirus relief, Honduras has nothing to pump in. The government is currently giving out some small boxes of food, but that is nowhere near the level of help that is needed. Even that is happening more in the cities than in the rural communities served by Sowers4Pastors.

Sponsors know how rewarding it is to look at pictures of cute kids and commit to providing ongoing assistance to a specific child. Some of you looked at a photo of a child and said, “I’ve got to sponsor that one.” Thank you for your “got to” giving.

The current need goes beyond that. There won’t be letters. You will never know which children were helped by your generosity. Think of this as “get to” giving. Through your donation, you get to touch the lives of many children, at a time when they need it the most.

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 - posted by Christi