Joy W. Lucius
Guest writer
January 2014 – The bus door opened and out stepped the eager American mission team. They were stunned. There she sat! What a beauty. Ebony eyes peeked out from beneath her dirty, disheveled coal-black hair. Neither the squalid surroundings nor the mud puddle she sat in could mar her beauty.Obviously riddled with intestinal parasites and too lethargic even to interact with such novel visitors to her remote mountain village, something about this one tiny toddler forever marked and changed that mission team. They talked of her, prayed for her and remembered her for an entire year.
Fast forward one year. The team traveled back to Nicaragua to lead another Bible school and medical clinic in that same village. Excitement grew on the second journey up that long, winding mountain road. Had their little girl survived? Would she still be there? Would the team recognize her now, a year later?
No, the team didn’t recognize her. Not at first.
Their precious object of prayer and concern, their little girl from the mud puddle, had changed – for the better. She was healthier and happier, smiling, playing and interacting with the team. Something had made a big difference in her life.
The difference maker was a MannaPack Rice, a blue and white packaged, fortified food product. A local pastor from Matagalpa, Nicaragua, had begun bringing MannaPacks to the children of the village twice a week on his ministry visits. The positive impact of MannaPacks on the children was evident.
MannaPacks are packaged and distributed by Feed My Starving Children, a ministry founded in 1987 by Minnesota businessman Richard Proudfit. Mark Crea, CEO of FMSC, told AFA Journal that the food packets are an innovative product, unique in worldwide humanitarian feeding efforts. Designed with input from some of America’s largest food manufacturers, the small plastic pouch of food is easy to ship, store and prepare.
The contents of the MannaPack Rice, feeding up to six children per package, become life-giving manna to the hungry kids who receive them in nearly 50 countries around the globe. Containing rice, soy nuggets, dehydrated vegetables and 20 added vitamins and minerals, these nutritious packets were created, according to Crea, with a two-fold mission: first, “stabilizing severely malnourished children” and then providing the “sustainability of a consistent, long-term feeding program.” Both missions, stabilization and sustainability, are accomplished with no bureaucracy, by working with local ministries to redistribute the priceless blue and white packs.
With more than 190 million meals provided annually, Feed My Starving Children desires to see the number grow. This humble ministry prays to simply be the hands and feet of Jesus as its MannaPacks “feed the bodies and feed the spirits” of the world’s hungry children.
And if that one precious little girl from a mountaintop village in Nicaragua is any indicator, those prayers are being answered. 
25 years/600,000,000 meals
In 2012, Feed My Starving Children celebrated 25 years of ministry and 600,000,000 meals distributed. The ministry has also developed two other groundbreaking formulas: MannaPack Potato-D for symptoms of severe digestive illness, and MannaPack potato-W, a baby food pack. For the 2012-2013 fiscal year, the ministry reported these numbers:
▶ 162,847,272 meals produced
▶ 446,000 children fed daily
▶ 657,344 volunteers at 7 sites
▶ 210 MobilePack events
▶ 63% year-to-year growth since 2003
▶ 22 cents – the cost of one meal
▶ $80 feeds a child for a year
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To volunteer to package MannaPacks, find locations of events, learn how to bring a MobilePack event to your area, make a donation or discover other ways to serve this unique ministry, visit fmsc.org, email [email protected] or call 763-504-2919.
