“Policy debates are one thing, but in the villages of Malawi and Ethiopia there are mothers who live on a fine line between life and death and who are desperately praying for their own little miracles. Sitting with one of them last week reminded me that if these reforms happen, there are potentially two million little miracles waiting to happen as well.”

Read Mark Moore’s latest Huffington Post article about the proposed reforms to US food aid, “A Food Aid Miracle Waiting to Happen,” here!

Meet Miracle: a little boy from Balantyre, Malawi who received lifesaving MANA at his local hospital. When Miracle came to the hospital, he weighed in at just 8.9 kilos (19.5 lbs). After five weeks on MANA, Miracle’s doctors opted to skip his last week of treatment because he was fat and happy! He now weighs 10.2 kilos (22.5 lbs) and his MUAC has gone from 13.5 cm to 15.2 cm. This sure makes us happy to see!

Read the entire New York Times op-ed, “When Food Isn’t the Answer to Hunger” by Tina Rosenberg, here.

-Muhammad Yunus, Skoll Forum 2013

Our Founder & CEO recently had the privilege of attending the 2013 Skoll Forum in Oxford England (thanks to a very generous donor). Mark spent the week soaking in the wisdom of humanitarians such as Muhammad Yunus and Dr. Paul Farmer. Their words left Mark with the conclusion that the tough social ills and problems of our time require thoughtful people asking both how and why and then giving their lives not only to causes and solutions but to suffering people.

Read Mark’s latest Huffington Post article, “Science Fiction & Social Fiction,” inspired by Muhammad Yunus’s words, here!

A few highlights from Skoll World Forum: http://bit.ly/ZWhgCu .

MANA is helping children in South Sudan through our partnership with Samaritan’s Purse. Samaritan’s Purse is distributing RUTF at Bunj Hospital, a medical facility they support that treats people in an area where more than 200,000 people live, including over 110,000 refugees who have been driven from their homes in Sudan. Grateful for them!

See more photographs of the quality care Samaritan’s Purse delivers at Bunj Hospital, here.

Madness for MANA

Guys and girls who love basketball and helping hungry kids around the world. 

To join the ‘Madness for MANA’ March Madness pool, go to:

1. www.runyourpool.com/join.cfm

2. Enter 15342 in the Pool ID box

3. Enter ‘hoops4MANA’ as Pool Password

4. Fill out the entry form information

5. Make multiple bracket picks and changes up until the 11:15 am CST deadline on Mar 21.

6. Send donation of $10 or more per bracket, cash or check (to MANA), to 531 Elmhurst, SA, TX 78209 or donate directly online.

7. Donated $200 gift card to winner and $50 gift card to 2^nd place.

Read the entire Huffington Post article, “Sequestration, Scarcity, and America’s Values,” by our CEO, Mark Moore, here!

Lent is a moveable fast that occurs on the 40 days leading up to Easter, the Christian holiday that marks the resurrection of Christ. It can come as early as February 4th and as late as March 10th.

What is Lent good for?

God does not forget stuff, but we do. Oddly, humans can’t forget things (anything) on purpose, we only accidentally stop remembering. If that’s the case, we can also intentionally choose to remember by setting up a system that, in effect, forces us to remember. That’s what Lent is about. The calendar comes around and presents us with a period of time where we are reminded of God’s goodness and offered a ritual to help facilitate that remembrance. There is another presupposition with Lent that has become particularly resonant with people living in modern times of plenty: It is that in the midst of abundance we are still often empty people who long to be filled. We are wealthy, but too often like little kids, we “fill” ourselves by eating junk food, by buying lots of toys, or watching too much TV. We fill up with all sorts fo things, always hoping that they will make us happy. Often they make us happy in the moment, but that kind of happiness doesn’t last very long. We just end up wanting more. We are never satisfied by these things. During Lent, many Christians try to stop filling up with all of these other things. Instead, we try to make room for God again. When we make room for God, we feel closer to God.

Some ways to remember what God did 

Lent allows us the freedom to make some personal choices and choose what can do (need to do) to make room for God. Giving up some of our comforts, things we like that “fill us” is a small, but effective way to remind ourselves of God’s goodness and faithfulness to us. Many people decide to give up something each week. People have dessert-free days or dessert-free weeks. Others go TV-free. Others give up stuff that costs money and use the money to help the less fortunate.

Last year for Lent, some churches broke their lenten fasts by coming together to eat MANA, a therapeutic, fortified peanut butter that is designed for severely malnourished children in developing nations. This MANA-fast took on different forms in different congregations. One congregation in Portland, Oregon decided to come together as a group and specifically focus their lenten fast on hungry children. To help facilitate this, MANA sent them packets of RUTF so that they could break their fast together as a community by eating the same food that starving children in Africa and elsewhere are given to break the involuntary fasts that threaten to take their lives.