VALLEY FORGE, Penn. (ABP) — American Baptist Churches USA has launched a fund drive to provide money to help ministry partners in poor areas deal with the rising costs of basic foodstuffs.
ABC International Ministries started the Global Crisis Food Fund with $100,000. The missions agency contributed $50,000 of its resources, and the other $50,000 came from One Great Hour of Sharing, an offering conducted by the ABC World Relief Office.
“Places around the world where hunger has been a big problem, have now seen it become a bigger problem as food prices have increased dramatically” Reid Trulson, ABC International Ministries executive director, said, according to the American Baptist News Service.
“Our fund is a response to our partners and other Christian organizations who are on the frontlines of helping to feed the hungry and homeless every day. We want to help them so they don't have to cut back on basic staples their people need for survival,” he continued.
Half of the money will be granted immediately to the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, to help cover the rising cost of rice. That is the primary staple food given to hundreds of thousands of displaced people living in refugee camps in the region.
“The most recent report I saw shows that the Thailand Burma Border Consortium supplies all the food in nine camps. [They] still need about $7 million to avoid having to severely cut the food ration,” Duane Binkley, a missionary who works with refugees in Thailand and in the United States said. Some cuts have been made already, he added.
The remaining $50,000 will be available for partners to apply for grants. U.S. partners may apply through American Baptist National Ministries.
A $5,000 grant has been approved for Jean Rabel, a region in Haiti, where missionaries Kihomi and Madubiga Nzunga serve. According to Nzunga, families are reportedly selling their children in hopes that they will be able to eat and survive wherever they are taken.
Partners in the Philippines and North Korea have also applied.
The food crisis is blamed on many factors, such as the rising cost of oil, which increases transportation costs; government subsidies that have increased food costs in some countries; natural disasters and other ongoing crises.
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