Help with Food
Will you go without something this Lent? Let Star of Hope suggest a few options that will rock someone’s world. It does not matter who you are, you can be a part of making sure a child will have a smile and plate of food, this Easter!
Lent is surely a time to think of others and one way is through sacrifice, decide on a family sacrifice; let’s be clear this is an act of self-denial that everyone can participate in. Doing this together as a family will give everyone the chance to encourage one another. As a family perhaps you can skip a movie out or a dinner.
Allow each member of the family to choose one’s own unique sacrifice for Lent.
That special coffee, video games, snacks, soda, sugary cereals, toys, cigarettes, quick burger and so on, for kids it seems the standard heartfelt item to give up is candy.
Take those savings and together as a family place the funds you would have spent into an envelope and send it to Star of Hope, again as a family, we will be sure it does great work by feeding and helping this Easter.
The big thing is, please pray as a family every day, pray for your family, your friends, the USA and the world. There is a supernatural power in prayer and your gift from skipping will have power as well when we feed the hungry. Your prayer as a family will help make all things stronger.
Again it is easy to make your sacrifice have compound effects, skip something and give it away to the needy, send the envelopes or checks to Star of Hope, PO Box 427, Ellinwood KS, 67526 ( or visit us at www.starofhope.us ) The small amounts when pooled together have a big effect, it adds up fast!
A refresher on Lent, it is the forty day period before Easter, excluding Sundays, which begins on Ash Wednesday “today” and ends on Holy Saturday (the day before Easter Sunday). The current or modern calendar counts Lent as only from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday, up to the Mass of the Lord's Supper. Even so, Lenten practices are properly maintained up to the Easter Vigil, excluding Sundays, as before.
So, why are the forty days called Lent?
A: They are called Lent because that is the Old English word for spring, the season of the year during which they fall. This is something unique to English. In almost all other languages its name is a derivative of the Latin term Quadragesima, or "the forty days."
And then, why is Lent forty days long?
Forty days is a traditional number of discipline, devotion, and preparation in the Bible. Thus Moses stayed on the Mountain of God forty days (Exodus 24:18 and 34:28), the spies were in the land for forty days (Numbers 13:25), Elijah traveled forty days before he reached the cave where he had his vision (1 Kings 19:8), Nineveh was given forty days to repent (Jonah 3:4), and most importantly, prior to undertaking his ministry, Jesus spent forty days in wilderness praying and fasting (Matthew 4:2).
Since Lent if a period of prayer and fasting, it is fitting for Christians to imitate their Lord with a forty day period.
Christ used a forty day period of prayer and fasting to prepare for his ministry, which culminated in his death and resurrection, and thus it is fitting for Christians to imitate him with a forty day period of prayer and fasting to prepare for the celebration, Easter Sunday (the day of the resurrection).
Again it is easy to make your sacrifice have compound effects, skip something and give it away to the needy, send the envelopes or checks to Star of Hope, PO Box 427, Ellinwood KS, 67526
Thank you and Blessings.
