Plainview layman establishes ministry to take a bite out of world hunger_120604

Posted: 12/03/04

Plainview layman establishes ministry
to take a bite out of world hunger

By Zach Crook

Wayland Baptist Trail Blazer

Jesus' words recorded in Matthew 25 about ministry to “the least of these,” along with the heartfelt cry of a Mexican Indian woman, led J.B. Roberts of First Baptist Church in Plainview to create a hunger-fighting nonprofit organization.

Seven years ago, Roberts attended a Plainview Rotary Club meeting where Eloisa Moya spoke. Moya, a Tarahumara Indian, explained that her people in the Sierra Madre Mountains of northern Mexico were starving due to drought and resultant crop failure.

The hunger had become so bad, parents were taking their children out of school and sending them to a local dump to scavenge through the garbage and find food for the family to eat.

Moved by the story, Roberts responded by establishing Hunger Plus–a nondenominational, nonprofit organization designed not only to feed hungry people around the world, but also to provide them with the means to become self-sufficient.

While the organization's board is comprised of Rotarians, Hunger Plus is not directly related to the Rotary Club.

However, with 1.2 million Rotarians worldwide, they provide the majority of the funding to keep Hunger Plus going.

Roberts said he hopes more Christians, especially Baptists, will get involved with the organization.

“Ephesians 2:10 is my favorite verse,” Roberts said. “It says, 'we are God's workmanship,' and that means it is our responsibility to help those in need. Sometimes Baptists act like works are such a bad thing, but they aren't. We are saved through faith only, but then we are commanded to do the Lord's work. … What motivates me and all the volunteers is the Lord and those needy people.”

From the initial project of helping the Tarahumaras, Hunger Plus has grown to include projects on every continent except Antarctica.

Hunger Plus has given more than 50 million servings of food to hungry people.

And food is not the only answer for Hunger Plus. Leaders of the organization also want to help people in need become self- sufficient. One way they do this is by providing solar-powered stoves that enable people to cook in areas that lack fuel, electricity and even wood to build a fire.

Often, Hunger Plus works with local aid groups to help the hungry.

One is in Mexico, where Hunger Plus agreed to provide one meal a day to the Tarahumara children if the local Catholic school would agree to educate them for half a day. This keeps the children out of the dump, and it helps them get the education they need to provide for their families later in life.

Roberts spends much of his free time traveling around the world to talk about the benefits of Hunger Plus to anyone who is willing to listen, including lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

But for all his efforts, 40,000 children a day still die of hunger, and Roberts desperately wants to change that.

“It's like the starfish story where, after the tide comes in, thousands of starfish are left on the beach to die. A caring soul starts picking them up one by one and throwing them back into the ocean,” Roberts said.

“We try to help out as many people as we can, but there are still starving people everywhere.”

For more information, visit www.hungerplus.org.