Prayers to end hunger: A prayer for those affected by the recent changes to the Food for Peace program

This is a special edition of Bread for the World’s Prayers to End Hunger series that invites our larger community to join in prayer for all who experience or will experience worsened hunger because of recent changes to the Food for Peace program. Sign up today to join Bread’s Prayers to End Hunger series on a regular basis.

As a community committed to ending hunger at home and around the world, we give thanks for Food for Peace, the United States’ flagship international food aid program, which since 1954 has provided lifesaving assistance to more than four billion people experiencing severe or crisis levels of acute food insecurity across 150 countries.

But today we also grieve recent changes to Food for Peace that will leave some of the world’s most acutely hungry people without access to vital assistance, including those living in countries experiencing famine conditions, conflict, and climate-driven crises. Now administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are several countries facing catastrophic hunger conditions that, due to recently revised criteria, no longer qualify for assistance under Food for Peace.

Throughout my travels, I have witnessed firsthand the lifesaving impact of this program. I have met families who survived because food arrived when all other options had run out. I have seen communities strengthened through the generosity and compassion embodied in this assistance.

Today, I invite you to join me in prayer for our neighbors who continue to face extreme hunger and hardship but who are no longer eligible to receive this aid — including people in Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and the West Bank and Gaza. These are fellow image-bearers of God — women and men, children and families — enduring unimaginable challenges and now facing the loss of vital food assistance despite ongoing need.

As followers of Christ, we believe that every person bears God’s image and possesses inherent dignity and worth. May we continue to be people who pray faithfully, advocate courageously, and seek to do good for our neighbors near and far.

Thank you for joining us in prayer.
Rev. Eugene Cho
President and CEO

God of Mercy,

We come before You with grieving hearts for all who are hungry around the world. Today we specifically lift up our neighbors living in places where immense suffering exists and where help feels distant.

Where help feels distant, be near.

We give thanks for the Food for Peace program and for those who have faithfully administered it for over 70 years. By Your grace, it has provided lifesaving assistance to millions of people. But today we also grieve how recent changes to the program will impact those living in the most dire circumstances.

We grieve that some of the world’s most food-insecure countries are no longer prioritized in Food for Peace programming — countries experiencing famine, prolonged climate shocks, devastating drought, and persistent conflict.

For our neighbors in Somalia, have mercy.

For our neighbors in Sudan, have mercy.

For our neighbors in the West Bank and Gaza, have mercy.

For our neighbors in Yemen, have mercy.

And for all our neighbors experiencing hunger and hardship around the world, have mercy.

Lord, You are near to the suffering and attentive to every cry. You know the names and needs of every child, family, and community enduring famine, conflict, drought, and instability. Where food is scarce, provide daily bread. Where systems have failed, strengthen courageous and just leaders. Where despair is growing, sustain hope.

Open pathways for humanitarian aid to reach communities in crisis. Strengthen humanitarian workers, faith leaders, farmers, and health workers laboring faithfully to care for their neighbors amid overwhelming need. Protect them and renew their strength.

We pray that you would grant lawmakers wisdom and moral clarity as they consider the future of Food for Peace, and we ask that you’d move their hearts so that they might prioritize people in the world’s most food-insecure countries over political or economic interests.

Give us hearts that break for what breaks Yours. Help us to pray faithfully, advocate boldly, and work tirelessly for a world where no one goes hungry.

We ask all of this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Amen