Lenten Stories: Hatching a reliable protein source
ELCA’s 40 Days of Giving
Thank you for reading stories of the life-saving work made possible by gifts to ELCA World Hunger during Lent. Learn more at elca.org/40days »
Hatching a reliable protein source
MEXICO
In the remote and mountainous community of Llano de las Piedras, Cochoapa el Grande in Guerrero, Mexico, poverty and lack of opportunity can make healthy food hard to come by. As a result, children can suffer from malnutrition and slowed growth and development.
Marcelina and her daughters, Imelda, 12, and Esmeralda, 10, were among the families who had a tough time affording enough healthy food. With little income and few options for growing crops, the choices for protein were limited. While Marcelina and her family were able to get eggs to eat three times a week, this was not enough to meet the nutritional needs of growing children.
Now things have changed for this family, thanks in part to your gifts to ELCA World Hunger. Working with a local organization, Amextra, the family received six chickens, materials for chicken coops and training on how to care for the poultry. Now they work to take care of the chickens and have eggs to eat anytime. They can sell the extra eggs at the market for additional income, which can be used to buy food or other essentials such as salt, dried chilis, tomatoes and rice.
Through your gifts to ELCA World Hunger, Amextra is helping other families in Llano de las Piedras make that belief a reality, too. In addition to providing chicken coops, your gifts helped other families in the community start gardens to grow vegetables such as radishes, cilantro, cabbage, broccoli and carrots, which allows them to supplement their diet and their livelihood. This is the kind of change that can impact the entire community, household by household, increasing stability and addressing the root causes of hunger. Thanks to your support, Marcelina and her neighbors can make seasons of hunger and episodes of malnutrition a thing of the past.
The world provides enough food for all, but more than 800 million people around the world face chronic hunger. We believe in a God of abundance, so as a church, we live out our call in baptism to strive for a just world where all are fed. ELCA World Hunger is our church’s ministry to end hunger and poverty. We walk alongside our partners and companions in the United States and more than 60 other countries. Your gifts to ELCA World Hunger address hunger and poverty around the world with creative and courageous action.
This Lent, you’re invited to join together with fellow supporters to study, reflect and give during ELCA World Hunger’s 40 Days of Giving. Experience how the grace of Christ moves us to engage in transformative works of love around the world through ELCA World Hunger as God calls us into the ministry of hope, liberation and restoration for our world.
Learn more at ELCA.org/40Days.