Isaiah 58: • •10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry •    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, •then your light will rise in the darkness, •    and your night will become like the noonday. •11 The Lord will guide you always; •    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land •    and will strengthen your frame. •You will be like a well-watered garden, •    like a spring whose waters never fail.

1. So what do you learn about God from this passage?
2. What do you learn about people?
3. What word or phrase is standing out to you?
4. How can you respond to obey this passage?
5. Who can you share this with this week?

One friend shares this story from this week:

As you know we are a small church but our great desire is to help the poor at this time. We have no support right now. And also, we have to observe the restrictions of this lockdown. I was down on my knees crying out to God : “Father, tell me how to reach the poor and needy because we can’t even go out.

I asked our domestic maid, who comes in for a few  hours a day, if she knew of anyone who needed help. We had enough money for a couple of bags of rice (amounting to around 50 kgs) and about ten kgs of dhal. Our domestic maid brought one single mother with no work and we gave her ten kgs of rice and three kgs of dhal. Later more people began to come in – one at a time.

My helper Saraswati and I were giving out dhal, when we realised that the 10 kg bag ( which we had weighed twice) had yielded more than its weight. At night i crept down to the kitchen and used a different scale to weigh it while also checking on the regular scale. We had given three people 3 kgs each of dhal from a 10 kg bag,  and there were 4.8 kgs left!!!! God multiplied the dhal!!!  I knew He was giving me a sign that He wanted more to be fed, so we drew out more money from our rapidly depleting account and bought more rice and dhal. Without us even spreading the word, people came by as we prayed, and they were all in great need. Yesterday we were down to one bag of rice weighing 25 kgs. We had given two people ten kgs each and i told Saraswati that we had five kgs left, so if anyone came this morning, that’s what we would give them. I had also ordered more supplies. This morning, we were preparing to add five more kgs to the five kgs of rice that I mentioned we had left. The sack was on the weighing scale, when Saraswati and I couldn’t believe our eyes. It was now ten kgs! God had doubled the portion!!! 

Today we opened more sacks as people came one by one, and all the while we were aware that God was with us and that He had given us another sign that we were to go on giving to the people who showed up at our door. How grateful we are to Him!! The best part is that our non- Christian part time maid also got to witness this miracle and her face was aglow with such reverence. Saraswati, who came to Jesus two years ago was as overwhelmed and overjoyed as I was, at the two miracles of multiplied rice and dhal. We could barely speak, and just stared at the sack of rice that last night weighed 5kgs and this morning weighed double!!

Yesterday over 30 people came for food from all different desperate situations.

This is the story from just one small church in South Asia!

We have heard so many more this week from all over India and Sri Lanka!

This morning we talked with a friend in South India who has been going out with a couple friends and finding people who need food. They go at wee hours of the morning when the police are not watching because of the lockdown. Monday they are planning to feed 100 families and have been giving the money they would have spent on fuel to commute to work each day. Instead they are teaching all their classes online at home and not needing money for transportation!

Let’s ask God what He would have us do to help people who don’t have money for food. There are needs all around us no matter where we live in this world. God is alive and well doing His work!

It’s up to us to be the light!