December 2, 2012 we launched Project 58, Life in the Fast Lane. We have long based our food distribution on Isaiah 58 believing that God has given us a very specific mandate about prayer, fasting and giving. This is the fast we have chosen and we actively choose to live life in the fast lane. The challenge is to fast one meal each week and donate the amount of money that would have been spent on said meal. The statistics for world hunger are staggering but what is even more staggering is how very effective this type of fast can be:
The United Nations reports that “Every year, 8 million people die because they’re too poor to stay alive.”
• Half the world lives on less than $2 a day
• 30,000 children die every day due to poverty
• 2 billion have no access to electricity (that’s a little less than 1 in 4 people)
• 20% of people in the highest-income countries consume 86% of the world’s resources.
• The poorest 20% account for a minuscule consumption of 1.3% of the world’s resources.
• More than one in six people worldwide – 894 million – don’t have access to improved water sources.
• Around 700,000 children die every year from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation – that’s almost 2,000 children a day.
• Currently, water-borne diseases, caused by unsafe drinking water, result in the deaths of 2 million children and infants each year, almost exclusively in poor populations of developing countries.
• Over 2.5 times more people lack water than live in the United States.
We can change that. We can change these statistics by doing this:
· $8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.
· $30 could buy you a TV series DVD Box set OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.
· $73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.
· $2,400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.
The last half of the year at Word Alive International Outreach has been action packed as we have put the proceeds from fasting just one meal a week to use. Every Second Saturday of each month a major food distribution takes place on our main campus and this December 8th we combined the food distribution with our quarterly Care Fair. Close to one thousand people participated in both events which was driven by our one hundred person volunteer serve-a-lution. Eight stylists and two barbers provided thirty haircuts for school-aged children with one hundred and fifty bags of dental hygiene items distributed, one hundred and ten bags of socks, underwear and t-shirts handed out while our volunteer nurses gave dental, eye and blood pressure exams. We were even blessed to have a local chiropractor giving adjustments. We could literally set this day to the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Our grill masters made sure that everyone had plenty to eat and even though there was a light, misting rain throughout the day no one’s spirits were dampened in the least. There was a festive, thankful atmosphere that seemed to transcend any mention of war or a fiscal cliff. The next day our tireless volunteers were on hand once again as we opened the doors to our newly launched Project 58 warehouses and Be Be’s Bargain Boutique. For newcomers the experience was nothing short of awe inspiring and we garnered volunteer recruits for well into 2013. The warehouse workers demonstrated how to prepare our resources to get food from the source to the need. The only thing that would have made this experience any livelier would have been to actually unload our trucks which we may incorporate next year.
Now let’s take a look at a recap of last year’s mission’s outreaches internationally that were also sponsored by our congregation choosing to live life in the fast lane and fasting one meal a week then donating that money to feed the nations of the world: Kent and Beverly Mattox traveled to Havana, Cuba May 8th -12th, Kent Mattox and Filipe’ De Stafani, took a team to one of the worst slums in Brazil where our efforts built two homes from May 18-21.st Twenty people from Word Alive traveled to Kingston, Jamaica to conduct a weeklong Vacation Bible School with an Olympic theme. There were approximately two hundred children that participated each day. The Word Alive team also ministered to seventy-five youth at their Friday night Youth service from July 7-14. Our back to school Care Fair was July 28th and over six hundred bags of school supplies were provided for school aged children. From September 18-26 Kent and Beverly Mattox traveled all over Russia to speak at minister’s conferences and at a Bible College in Moscow. From September 29-Oct 6 several members of Word Alive traveled to Guatemala with Randy Knott, and Scott and Kelly Deardurff to drill the second well sponsored by Word Alive Water Well construction. On October 30th John Carrette flew to Havana, Cuba with financial aid from Word Alive International Outreach to help with disaster relief from the damage incurred on October 25th from hurricane Sandy’s deadly force. From November 23-Dec. 2nd forty people traveled to Israel to experience a spiritual journey. There is no other way to describe life in the fast lane but amazing.
