By: Christa Meland

“Are you curious to know what God is doing through you?” Bishop Bruce R. Ough asked members of the 160th session of the Minnesota Annual Conference?

Minnesota United Methodists have collectively packed 2,091,077 meals to date through our “Million Meals Marathon.”

That equates to 9,592 boxes of meals and 266 pallets—and it’s enough to feed 5,728 children once a day for a year. Thousands of volunteers took part in the packaging, and they ranged in age from 5 to 90-plus.

“God has done a miraculous thing through you,” Bishop Ough said.

In February, the Minnesota Conference challenged its churches to pack at least 1 million meals for the world’s hungry children. That goal was surpassed in early April, and Minnesota United Methodists have continued packing—at three Twin Cities-area Feed My Starving Children sites and at two-day packing events that took place earlier this month in Mankato, Rochester, Duluth, and St. Cloud.

The Minnesota Conference will give 80 percent of this year’s Love Offering, an annual offering that benefits mission projects, to Feed My Starving Children to help pay for the meals being packed at the remote sites. Project AgGrad and Volunteers in Mission scholarships will each receive 10 percent of the Love Offering, which was collected Thursday morning.

Karen Thompson—chair of the Missions Promotion team, which selected the three recipients of this year’s Love Offering—explained that Project AgGrad works to address hunger in a different way than Feed My Starving Children. It selects promising students from developing countries and supports them as they pursue an advanced degree at the University of Minnesota; upon completing their degree, they return home to work on food production for the rest of their career.

After announcing the total number of meals packed and before the Love Offering was collected, Bishop Ough asked: “Will God use us to do a second miracle?”

Attendees danced their way to Feed My Starving Children boxes in which the Love Offering was collected. The total amount collected through the Love Offering will be reported later on.

Christa Meland is director of communications for the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.