Peruvian Children Feed Others with Bread of Love During Pandemic

Peru Country Manager Daniel Salazar shares the exemplary actions of children at Sagrada Familia children’s home in Peru. As food has become scarce during the COVID-19 lock-down, they support their community willingly with the little they have – knowing their generosity is a sign of hope for the world.

By Daniel Salazar

What do you do when you are running out of food? You feed your whole community with what you have left. At least that’s what the kids at Sagrada Familia are choosing to do.

No, it’s not because they’ve received checks in the mail. And, neither has the government begun to provide support. In fact, even the children’s families have failed them, or have no ability to contribute. After all, these are 250 abandoned – and in many cases abused – children.

Yet when most people are hoarding, they are sharing. That’s the result of growing up in a loving community. They share the little they have with everyone around them. It’s the lesson their “father,” Miguel Rodríguez, has gently taught them – to “see everyone through the eyes of Jesus.” Rather than resenting those who have neglected them, they’re working extra hard these days to share bread in the shanty towns outside their gates.

Sagrada Familia receives no public or private funding, and survives on donations. For this reason, Miguel set up a bakery in the community a few years ago to produce fortified bread for the 1,400 children who attend the on-site school. Some is also sold in the wider community, which provides teenagers the chance to learn a valuable trade and to contribute to the income for the facility. But the profit center has been converted into a bread distribution center during the pandemic.

Sagrada Familia will continue making bread for as long as their good fortune provides. That could be for this week, this month, or this year. But the most important question is what we are choosing to do. As in the Bible story, if we had five loaves of bread, or more, would we multiply them with our own contribution?

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