Village Christmas Meals

As you prepare for the holidays, are you thinking about how you can bless the poor this Christmas? We have a program called "Village Christmas Meals" that provides a very tangible blessing each year for many people living in extreme poverty.

There are families living in rural Myanmar who are too poor to afford meat with their meals. These families live on less than a dollar a day, which is barely enough income to provide rice and vegetables. Beef, especially, is a luxury most simply cannot afford. However, there is one time of year when these families look forward to eating meat: at Christmas.

A few weeks before Christmas the churches and smaller villages will pool their meager funds to try to purchase a pig or a cow. They also contribute rice and vegetables from their own food supplies. They build temporary “barns” out of bamboo and thatch, in advance. They scatter a thick bed of straw on the ground inside the “barn” and this reminds them that Jesus, the King of Kings, was born in a humble barn. He was poor, just like them. Then they all come together for community meals on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, noon, and night.

On Christmas Eve, they will eat, sing, dance, play games, and listen to preaching and teaching all night long. Then they do the same all the next day. They will eat and celebrate together until the food runs out.

Even though all of the families are very poor by Western standards, there are many families who are poor even according to the living standards of the villages. These families living in extreme poverty are too poor to contribute anything at all towards the food. Because of this, they feel too ashamed to join in the meals.

However, we think everyone should be able to partake, regardless of whether they are poor or abjectly poor, whether or not they have any money or food to contribute. We wanted to take away the stigma of not being able to contribute money or food for the community meals by providing a pig or a cow for the meat, which is the main expense of the meal.

That’s why we began the "Village Christmas Meals" project in 2007 - to provide the meat for the Christmas celebration, and removing the shame associated with not being able to contribute. Everyone is able to provide something - even a handful of rice - and that is enough.

Thanks to you, since 2007 hundreds of  villages and churches have been provided with meat at Christmastime. Last year (2022) your donations helped feed over 300 different villages and/or churches! We provided food for poor villages and churches in Chin State, Sagaing Region, Mandalay Region, Irrawaddy Region, Tanintayi Region, Yangon Region, Shan State, Kachin State, and even in the Naga Self-Administered Zone.

We estimate that the average size group receiving VCM funds is about 175 people. So one VCM donation of $250.00 will provide about 700 meals!

This year (2023) we hope to provide the meat for at least three hundred different groups again, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could help even more? Would you please help us reach this goal? To provide the meat for an entire Village Christmas Meal is only $250, but anything you can afford is great.

Please note that donations need to be received before December 10th in order to distribute the funds in time for Christmas.

Each year the people who receive this help are so incredibly thankful. They are amazed that people like you know about them and that you love them enough to share your blessings with them. And when we share our blessings with the poor it makes our own Christmas that much better!

Will you please help a poor village or church in rural Myanmar this Christmas? And will you share this request with your friends, relatives, small group members, Sunday School class members, and anyone else you can think of?

Do you have Questions? Call our VCM project coordinator, Mr. Kevin Hughs at (217) 306-5567, or Mrs. MaryAnn Cherry at (217) 415-9187. Alternately, you can send an email to info@myanmarhope.org.