Dining in and building community

Picture from a community breakfast
at North Emanuel, St. Paul.

Sometimes it takes cooperation to show the neighborhood the value of dining together. A shared meal can build solidarity, strengthen relationships, and enrich lives. Community meals happen all over this synod, but a new effort recently started in the synod’s North Conference is a great example of how inviting communities to dine together can feed and strengthen its members.

Beginning in mid-September, each Monday from 4:00-6:00 p.m. you find people dining together in the fellowship hall at Zion Lutheran in Chisago City. The meal isn’t just for members of Zion. All people in the community are welcome, and no donations are accepted.

This new venture is made possible through the partnership of three ELCA congregations (Zion, Trinity in Lindstrom, and Chisago Lake in Center City) through Christians in Action Team and Family Pathways. The congregations provide volunteers, supplies, and some beverages. Family Pathways provides the food and expertise in coordinating such an effort.

Family Pathways, a grassroots, community-based agency, has been around for over 30 years. It provides senior and youth services and food pantries in 16 counties in central Minnesota and western Wisconsin. It will continue support the meals as long as at least 50 people are consistently fed through this program.

Exciting idea! The meals are a way to feed more than just the physical body as people dine together in community.

Memorials, numbers, and real people

By Vernita Kennen, co-chair, Saint Paul Area Synod Hunger Work Group

Today I am still thinking and reading about the many tenth anniversary events for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Perhaps you are, too, and maybe you were one of the many who attended a special ecumenical event in remembrance. Your pastor(s) may have made mention of the anniversary during the sermon and/or included it in the prayers of the people. In fact, the commemoration and conversation about it were difficult to avoid.

With all of the attention given to the 9/11 anniversary, I am struck by how the loss of lives in that tragic series of events seem to overshadow the daily loss of lives by those who do not have enough food. While I certainly do not want to make the loss of any life insignificant, the numbers continue to assail me. Each death, no matter if lost in a tragedy like 9/11 or through insufficient food, is the death of a real person.

Ten years later, terrorism still exists in our world. Unfortunately there are also many more hungry people. And, after much progress in the struggle against hunger in the 1980s and 90s, a plateau was reached and the numbers are climbing again.

The causes are many but include weather conditions, political and economic turmoil, and population growth. Today there are more hungry people in the world than the combined population of the United States, Canada, and the European Union! (Facts from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO)

Each death is important to God who creates and loves all. I ask God to help me remember that—and do something to be about God’s work with my hands today and every day.