Foodbanks - right or wrong?

I have been a supporter of the local food bank for a long time. It enables people who are in temporary financial need to receive basic food to tie themselves over for a few days. Typically this affects people who have lost their job and are in the gap between their last pay cheque and the kicking in of benefit payments.

But the question remains why in 21st century Britain food banks should be needed at all? And growing at alarming speed at that?

As Jack Monroe puts it:

But the need for food banks, in one of the richest countries in the world, is a devastating testimony to the inequalities in our supposedly developed and forward thinking country. While the rich enjoy tax cuts, the poor are turfed out of their homes to pay for it. When the rich enjoy marriage tax breaks, the poor won’t even be able to afford the ceremony. While discussing worldwide poverty and hunger at the G8 summit earlier this year, our Prime Minister tucked into fillet beef and violet artichokes.

Read her full blog here.

My church family

I am grateful and feel privileged to be part of a wonderful church community, which aims to worship God and serve the local community at the same time (after all, when we serve our neighbours, do we not serve God too?) 

We provide breakfast on a Saturday morning, and everybody is welcome. A couple of homeless guys are amongst the regulars.

At the same time we are a collection point for Food Bank, a UK charity which works in conjunction with health and social services to provide food parcels to people in financial difficulties.

I feel very welcomed and accepted into my church family. Being part of the Body of Christ truly is like being part of a great family!

The more welcomed and accepted I feel, the more my desire grows to reach out and make others feel the same; be they friends or strangers.

Perhaps the love of God is best felt, when it comes from fellow human beings ...?

Just as God loves us, so we should love each other.

Just as God forgives us, so we should forgive each other.

Just as God protects us, so we should look out for and protect each other.

I thank God for having brought me this far on my faith journey! I thank him for having brought me to my church community. I pray that he will continue to nurture me and mature me in my faith, and that he will use me for the purpose he has intended for me ... and I pray that I will never lose sight of it!

Thank you, Lord.