“From here, this looks like an absolutely beautiful picture of what worship is supposed to be,” said worship leader Matt Lundgren from the main stage in the arena on the campus of the University of Tennessee.
As the students inched their way forward, they sang worship songs with the prayerful lyrics that included “Make us a channel of your grace” and “Love, help us be your love.”
The special morning service gave students the opportunity to give to the impoverished people of Bentiu as well as other places around the world. The offering will be used by Covenant World Relief to fund a new school, provide student supplies, and support teacher salaries, a food program, and a clinic to address the medical needs of the community.
Students also packed food for the Christian organization Feed My Starving Children that will be sent to Bentiu and other areas of extreme hunger.
Some of the students wept as they brought forward their donations that quickly filled buckets held by volunteers in the center of the arena. The amount raised will be announced Thursday evening.
During the worship service, many students also formed assembly lines to pack individual meals in the arena as part of CHIC’s partnership with Feed My Starving Children. During most of the week, students are packing food during the afternoons, but organizers wanted to give students a visible example of ways they can help.
Ian Goodrich of Dassel Covenant Church in Dassel, Minnesota, was packing food for the second consecutive day. “It was fun yesterday,” he said, explaining that he had looked forward to the second opportunity. Goodrich added that the work has special meaning for him because a relative once depended on similar meals when he was hungry.
Deb Andrews, a site manager for the organization, told the students that they already had packed 114,000 of the meals, and that they would assemble more than half a million by the end of the week.
Each of the meals weighs about a pound, meaning the students will have packed more than 2.5 tons of food. That will be enough to feed 1,600 children for a year, Andrews said, telling the students, “You are what makes this happen.”
The meals are being loaded onto trucks that will transport them to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, for eventual distribution throughout 30 countries. Each truckload weighs 43,000 pounds, Andrews says.
“The next time these boxes are opened, they will be opened by a child or family in need,” Andrews observed.
Each meal includes rice, soy, dried vegetables and powdered vitamins and minerals with chicken flavoring. The artificial flavoring is used out of respect for cultures that would not eat animal meat, Andrews said during an interview.
President Glenn Palmberg (accompanying photo) joined in packing the meals and said he was moved by the students’ compassion. “Faith becomes real in their lives and they learn to experience their faith in ministries of compassion, ministry and justice,” Palmberg said.
He added that the students’ work represented the best of Covenant ethos. “We are a church that believes in the whole gospel,” Palmberg said. “We believe we are to share our faith to bring others to faith, and we share our lives by bringing the love of God.”
Covenant Communications is providing daily coverage of CHIC 2006 from the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville as part of this online Covenant news report. For additional articles, photo galleries, and daily blogs (with Spanish translations), please see CHIC 2006.
Copyright © 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.
