Man Does Not Live On Bread Alone
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
-Matthew 4:1-4
The most visible sign of the Lenten season in our home is the Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl container, carefully folded and set in its traditional place on the countertop. The colorful cardboard box has not changed much since my childhood. We collect our loose change and donate to support families both globally and locally combat hunger and health problems. (Local food programs receive twenty-five percent of the money collected.) It’s amazing how quickly change adds up to a substantial amount.
Donating to this cause is a teaching and learning opportunity for children and adults alike. Each time one drops a coin into the container, they have an opportunity to reflect on the fact that there is someone hungry nearby. The fact is that nearly 800 million people in the world go to bed hungry every night. This is not only a third-world issue. Our neighbors throughout the Diocese of Evansville, the people the Gospel calls us to love, are suffering as well.
Man does not live on bread alone. Rice, however, is the world’s most important food crop and a primary source of food for more than half of the world’s population. A person needs about 400 grams of rice per day to ensure a minimum of 2,100 kilocalories, which is equal to 19,200 grains or three cups of cooked rice.
A grain of rice is so tiny it doesn’t even register on a normal scale. Yet one can send hundreds of thousands of grains of rice to starving people by simply playing a computer game. One of the simplest is found the non-profit website freerice.com, owned by and supported by the United Nations World Food Programme.
Freerice.com operates on a simple premise: users answer trivia-based questions and for each correct answer, the World Food Programme donates ten grains of rice to end hunger. Ten grains doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up quickly. A variety of subjects are available: math, foreign language, geography, science and even SAT prep. Several of my past students took it upon themselves to research if this was a legit site, and all efforts on our part showed validity.
The website is at times glitchy; but within a few minutes, one’s score can quickly grow into the thousands. Graphics of bowls of rice line the side of the screen giving a literal depiction of what has been earned. In our world, where technology is present in our every moment, this is an opportunity to use it as a tool to teach and inspire children to give.
This site is only one of the thousands of resources available to bring enrichment to the Lenten season, including the meatless recipes found on the Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowl site: crsricebowl.org.
When you’ve cleaned your plate, remember to put the money you saved by not buying meat (an average of $3 per person per meal) in your CRS Rice Bowl to feed others in need.
Don’t carry a lot of cash? Don’t worry - there’s an app for iOS and Android devices! Search CRS Rice Bowl and download the app to get daily reminders and make online donations. (Some users have reported difficulty using the app with Android 7.0 software, but a fix is expected soon.) It couldn’t be simpler.
Note: If you happened upon the communications office this week and saw me playing video games online, please understand it was only to do research for this column. I needed to verify that one of my favorite websites was still in existence and in the process, I fed the hungry. And I totally beat my high score in the process. Peace.
