Offering of Letters
Good Shepherd is joining in the 2025 Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters on Sunday, June 8 to stand up for our neighbors who are hungry and face harm from the severe cuts to US and global antihunger programs. If you have been watching the news, you are aware of recent political developments that are cause for great concern among Christians who care about God's hungry people, both here in the United States and around the globe. First it was the shuttering of the U.S.A.I.D. and its' poverty-focused assistance programs that were helping people in poor countries develop sustainable skills for self-sufficiency and providing feeding programs for hungry children. More recently, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over 10 years to extend tax breaks for the wealthiest 5% of Americans. To help pay the debt incurred, they are proposing cuts of nearly $300 billion in SNAP (Food Stamp) benefits and depriving 8.5 million Americans of Medicaid health coverage. What's a Christian to do? As Americans, we can write to those members of Congress who represent us, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Representative Marilyn Strickland asking them to help apply the brakes to these cruel policies. The three links below will provide you with the information you need to write a letter. If you do not have ready access to a computer, you can pick up hard copies of the information at the Fair Trade Table on June 1 before and after worship. They include sample letters and instructions for making your letter effective, as well as fact sheets about WIC and Global Nutrition programs. We will have letter writing station set up in the entry area on June 8 to write letters, but if you prefer to write your letter at home, you are encouraged to do so and bring it to worship with you on June 8. Recent news is discouraging but we are not alone in this endeavor. Five hundred fifty other Christian congregations across the country are participating in the 2025 Bread for the World Offering of Letters telling personal stories about the differences these important programs have made in their lives and encouraging our members of Congress to share those stories with the majority party as the Budget bill makes its way through the Senate.