03 Mar The Good, The Bad, And The Hungry

Have you ever wondered how Rice & Beans Month got started? Executive Director Dan Holcomb shares a few words about the origins of this unique event:

Several years ago, I took an honest look at our organization. I saw a team filled with passionate activism making a significant impact in the lives of hundreds of vulnerable people in East Africa.

But at the same time, we were suffering from spiritual hunger. We weren’t taking the appropriate care of our internal spiritual cores. We were suffering from burnout and making huge mistakes in our ministry.

We turned to God for help. And we began to learn deeper lessons about Christian spiritual practices that would help to mature us in our faith and prompt us to daily savor the salvation and grace of Christ Jesus. It was during this time of spiritual renewal that we created a very unusual yearly event. We committed to a month of eating more simply and donating the money we saved to buy food for families in East Africa. We called it “Rice & Beans Month.”

Rice & Beans Month helped bring transformation to our spiritual life, and gave us another practical way to care for vulnerable kids. They had a food crisis, we had a spiritual crisis. God used Rice & Beans Month to address both types of hunger. This event now has hundreds of participants all around the world.

So let me welcome you to Rice & Beans Month! My prayer is that you’ll be transformed by Christ as you savor his delicious grace and submit yourself in daily living sacrifice to him.

– Dan Holcomb, Founder and Executive Director of Lahash International

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Article adapted from Hope Is Alive, a quarterly magazine publication of Lahash International. You can sign-up online to receive this free magazine.