Our wants vs their needs

Last night at Confirmation, we talked about when Jesus fed 5,000 men, their families, and probably hundreds if not thousands of widows and orphans. If you spend 2+ years reading through the law and the prophets (the Old Testament), there are two commands you won't be able to miss:
1. I am the Lord your God...you shall have no other gods before me (including money, an issue the Bible specifically addresses over 2,000 times).
2. Take care of widows and orphans. Give the first and best to God and share what he has blessed you with. Once your needs are met by God, help meet the needs of others.

Then this morning, before heading off to camp, I read three stories:
1. The parable of the crooked manager
2. An interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees
3. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (not the guy Jesus raised from the dead...apparently, Lazarus was a common name)

What caught my eye was a description of the Pharisees. These guys followed the law to a T. Every one of them tithed, but Scripture calls them "a money-obsessed bunch." They used there wealth to promote THEMSELVES, not God. During Lent, our Sunday School children and the LYFE Group will be raising money to feed starving children. I'm not sure what the Faith Center will become, but one of the visions I have is a Feeding Children International packaging location (formerly Kids Against Hunger). A HUGE part of my ministry in the past 5 years (since Adi was learning to walk) has been packaging 1,000,000 meals for local food shelves and kids around the world who would otherwise starve to death (26,000 kids under 5 do every day). With proper funding from adults (and the youth themselves...we're going to challenge them to tithe from their own money during Lent), we could be pulling kids in off the street to help package these meals.

$5,000 provides the infrastructure to set up a packing location (tables, sealers, funnels, etc). After that, the only cost is the heat for a building we already own and 10 cents/meal we package. The most meals I've helped package in any given year is 358,518 at a cost of only $35,851.80. We fed almost 1,000 kids a meal every day that year. Between Souper Bowl Sunday (Feb 7th) and the 30 Hour Famine (March 19th)--wow, that's 40 days! how Biblical--could we raise enough money to get this thing off the ground? That would be incredible. If you are interested in giving $100 or several thousand dollars anonymously, let me know.