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Meal Seven - Haiti

Spotlight on Haiti

Region: Latin America and Caribbean
Population: 9,719,932 (July 2011 estimate)
Literacy Rate: 52.9%
Life Expectancy: total population: 62.17 years
Urban Population: 52% of total population (2010)

Printable Table Tent

Download and print this table tent, designed for the Haitian meal. This table tent includes conversation starters and information about your gifts to ELCA World Hunger in action.
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Placemats

Download, print and use different placemats during your Lenten meals to raise awareness about hunger, poverty and related issues.

Program

This 30-minute program, specifically designed for the Haiti meal, contains a reading, litany, monologue, prayers and discussion questions.

Table Prayer

Lord, we have come to your market place. We know there are plenty of provisions in your market. We have brought our baskets with us; and now we want to go back home from your market with our baskets full of provisions.

Lord, we don’t get mangos from an avocado tree, and we don’t get corn from a banana plant. We produce what we are. Help us to be what you need produced.

(Prayers from Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food.)

Story: Esta
On the island nation of Haiti, most people live off the land -- growing and selling potatoes, bananas, oranges and other fruits and vegetables. But in the in the lush, mountainous region of Thiotte, Haiti, soil erosion has made it increasingly harder to grow these crops...
Read the full story.

Download and share this bulletin insert.

Local Recipes

Popular foods in Haiti include Haitian patties, pain patate (sweet potato pudding) and Haitian rice and beans. Find more recipes at http://www.islandflave.com/recipes/65-haitian-recipes.

Skip the Coffee. Feed the Hungry.

Many are familiar with the tradition of giving something up during Lent. Last year, Pastor Steve Biegner of Zion Lutheran Church in Clarence Center, N.Y., decided to add something to his Lenten tradition. For 40 days, he stopped drinking coffee. And in its place, he gave whatever money he normally spent to support ELCA World Hunger.

“What does giving up coffee have to do with my relationship with God?” Pastor Steve asked. “Nothing. But focusing on the problem of hunger does. It helps ‘enlighten my eye’ to the ongoing problem.”

He placed a large, empty pickle jar outside the sanctuary of his church and asked others to join him. Each day, members of the congregation would sacrifice their favorite morning beverage and save the money they would have spent. By Easter Sunday, the pickle jar was full of donations to help end hunger and poverty.