3 million meals: One church in India fed 37,000 families for a month during the COVID-19 lockdown

A pastor in India says he heard the Lord tell him to "store food."  Then, his church provided meals to 3 million people.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began to launch the world into lockdown, Pastor Satish Kumar worried for his congregants, Joy! News reports.

Kumar began his ministry in 1995 in Hyderabad, India. 10 years later, he was pastoring a fast-growing church, having gone from 25 members in 1995 to 130,000 in 2015.

Today, Kumar says their church has 8 satellites and a membership of 330,000 people.

The pastor says God told him to begin storing food in March.

At the time, Kumar thought of God's interactions with Joseph in the Bible. In the Old Testament, God used Joseph to store food in Egypt to prepare for a famine. The lockdown's limitations on access to food and groceries, especially for his poorer members, made Kumar see a parallel between Joseph's story and his own.

Kumar set out to store up about $100,000 worth of food. He shared the plan with his leadership team but then began to feel as tho the goal was too low.

He felt his church should aim to gather and store 700 tons fo food. That is the equivalent of 1,400,000 pounds of food.

Kumar spread the word of his church's new goal during the pandemic. His congregants, he says, sacrificed much of what they had. Pickups were organized from vendors who donated meals and volunteers began to package food in cartons.

Each carton supplied three meals a day for four people for a time period of one month. Kumar posted a phone number for those who needed the food on his social media to call if they wanted to receive help.

The food was for everyone, not simply Kumar's own congregants. Those from other religious backgrounds in the area were also in need during the difficult times.

"The coronavirus has no caste, creed, region, and religion," Kumar explains. "Likewise even the Love of Christ has no region and religion. That’s why we have decided to give these kits to those who called us online, including Hindu priests, pastors, and Muslim imams, all of whom got the kits."

The cartons did not contain any ministry materials, either, which would have been disapproved of by the Hindu authorities. There was simply a photo of Kumar and the church, pasted on the outside of the box, to show the carton's recipient who had packed their meals.

By May 22, the church surpassed its goal of 700 tons of food. They reached 800 tons and 37,000 families have received a month's worth of food from Kumar's church.

That makes for a total of more than 3,000,000 meals.

Workers who delivered food were amazed at their impact. One worker arrived at a home with the food carton and was greeted by a destitute mother and her children. They were starving and near death, so the mother had decided to take her own life.

The knock at the door by the worker and Kumar's food package saved their family.

Kumar also worked to spiritually feed his congregants. For 64 nights, Kumar worked endlessly to broadcast from his church building. Each night, the pastor put together a three-hour broadcast, preaching for nearly half of that every day.

The word of God continues to flourish, despite the fear and restrictions of the coronavirus.