$20 is pocket change for most of us in middle class America. We'll spend more than that on one fast food meal for our family.

But for a family in Malawi, $20 will mean the difference between living and dying.

Droughts and floods combined in the past year to completely devastate crops in Malawi, and the people are already beginning to go hungry.

Eric Chapman, our missionary in Malawi who works with hundreds of village churches to spread the gospel and train church leaders, has been visiting villages and seen that the people are already thinner and more sickly. In one village he visited they were eating wild grass, and in another they were eating a bitter root that has to be cooked 3 times to get the poison out of it or else it will kill them.

His plan is to distribute corn meal to the believers in the village churches through the pastors. This is dangerous work, as riots and even murders are not uncommon over food during times of famine. But as he put it, "how can I turn a blind eye to such a need?"

I'd like to challenge you to give $20 a month for a year, which will help a family of four in Malawi make it through this next year of famine. Many of us can afford to part with more than $20 per month and help multiple families.

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?"    (James 2:14-16 ESV)