Feeding the hungry

Providing food for those in need is a basic ministry.

In Cape Girardeau, the Salvation Army serves dinner Monday through Friday during the last week of every month. St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church serves a meal the last Saturday of each month. And Christ Episcopal Church has started serving breakfast on the third Saturday of each month.

The following devotional was posted on ourgodreigns.net/feeding_the_poor.htm:

"One day a young executive was asked to share with his fellow employees how he felt about participating in the company's voluntary "feeding the poor" program. He took one early morning slot each week to ladle soup and pass out sandwiches to nearly 400 homeless and street people in his city. The young man said this:

"I go on Tuesdays to feed those we call poor, and in fact, they are poor in material things. Some of them are poor in many ways, and we also try to help them with encouragement, advice and, on occasion, a word of prayer. But in many ways, these hungry and poor men and women have nurtured something in me. They have made me more aware of the spiritual side of my life, and they have led me to be aware that we will 'feed' each other in may ways every day -- either good nourishment for the soul, or poison.

"I have a new understanding that when I go home and genuinely compliment my wife, or sit down to read a story to my daughter, or toss a ball with my son, I am feeding something inside them. I no longer see myself as part of the Tuesday-morning feeding team but as a 24-hour-a-day feeding volunteer."