Saturday priesthood session: Outreach of aid has become a miracle
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When the Church Security Plan, later known as the Welfare Program, was about to be announced in general conference in 1936 there was a rumored prediction it would come to be recognized as even more noteworthy than the coming of the Mormon pioneers to the Mountain West, President Gordon B. Hinckley said in his Saturday evening priesthood session address.
"I wondered back in those days how anything the Church did could eclipse in anyone's judgment the historic gathering of our people to these western valleys of the United States," he remarked. "But I have discovered something of interest in the last short while."
He went on to say that many prominent visitors, including heads of state and ambassadors of nations, are received in the Office of the First Presidency. "In our conversations not one of these visitors mentioned the great pioneer journey of our forebears. But each of them, independently, spoke in high praise of our welfare program and our humanitarian efforts."
In the beginning, the welfare program was designed to take care of the needs of the Latter-day Saints, he explained, adding that thousands of them have been served in the years since. "Numberless members of the Church have worked in volunteer capacities in producing that which was required. We now operate 113 storehouses, 63 farms, 105 canneries and home storage centers, 18 food processing and distribution plants, as well as many other facilities."
Moreover, aid has been extended to countless others, the Church president said. "Right here in this Salt Lake City community many of the hungry are fed daily by non-LDS agencies utilizing LDS welfare supplies."
The principles on which the Church's facilities operate are essentially what they were in the beginning, he said. "Those in need are expected to do all they can to provide for themselves. Then families are expected to assist in taking care of their less-fortunate members. And then the resources of the Church are made available. . . .
"Those who are able voluntarily work to provide for those who are not able. Last year there were 536,000 days of donated labor in welfare facilities. That is the equivalent of a man working eight hours a day for 1,542 years."
President Hinckley read from a March 20 Church News "Pure Religion" vignette by Neil K. Newell describing a group of farmers harvesting sugar beets at a Church welfare farm in Rupert, Idaho. "Such remarkable volunteer service goes on constantly to assure supplies for the storehouses of the Lord," President Hinckley commented.
Since the beginning, the program has moved beyond caring for the needy to encourage the preparedness of families in the Church, he said. "No one knows when catastrophe might strike. Or sickness, or unemployment, or a disabling accident.
"Last year the program helped families store 18 million pounds of basic foods against a possible time of need. But the good, wholesome, basic food so stored brings peace of mind, and also the satisfaction of obedience to counsel."
Beginning some years ago at the time of a severe drought in Africa, another element has been added to the welfare efforts of the Church, President Hinckley recounted. "Members of the Church were invited to contribute to a great humanitarian effort to meet the needs of those terribly impoverished people. Your contributions were numerous and generous. The work has continued because there are other serious needs in many places. The outreach of this aid has become a miracle. Millions of pounds of food, medical supplies, blankets, tents, clothing and other materials have staved off famine and desolation in various parts of the world. Wells have been dug, crops have been planted, lives have been saved."
He cited the example of a Church missionary couple working in Ghana. "They drill into the dry earth. Their drill reaches the water table below, and the miracle liquid comes to the surface and spills over the dry and thirsty soil. There is rejoicing. There are tears. There is now water to drink, water with which to wash, water to grow crops. There is nothing more treasured in a dry land than water. How absolutely beautiful is water pouring from a new well."
On one occasion, as an expression of common brotherhood, the couple sang "I Am a Child of God" at a gathering of tribal chiefs and elders of the village where they were working, President Hinckley said.
"This one couple, through their efforts, have provided water for an estimated 190,000 people in remote villages and refugee camps."
Such couples have worked in impoverished areas of America and in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Russia and the Baltic nations, President Hinckley noted. "And so the work expands."
He said the Church, joining with others recently provided wheelchairs for 42,000 disabled persons and, aided by doctors and nurses, provided neo-natal resuscitation training to nearly 19,000 professionals last year alone. "Last year, some 2,700 individuals were treated for eye problems, and 300 local practitioners were trained in sight-saving procedures," he added.
"Where devastating floods have come, where earthquakes have created disaster, where hunger has stalked the land, wherever want has been created by whatever cause, representatives of the Church have been there," he said. "Some 98 million dollars in cash and in-kind assistance have been distributed in the past year, bringing such aid to a total of 643 million dollars in just 18 years."
He spoke of being in Central America in 1998, where he witnessed firsthand the distribution of food and clothing and the cleaning and rebuilding of homes in the wake of Hurricane Mitch.
"We shall go on," the Church president vowed. "There will always be a need. Hunger and want and catastrophes will ever be with us. And there will always be those whose hearts have been touched by the light of the gospel who will be willing to serve and work and lift the needy of the earth."
President Hinckley mentioned the Perpetual Education Fund, a correlated effort to the Welfare Program, in which loans are extended to worthy young men and women for education. He said 10,000-plus are now being assisted, and experience indicates they will be able to earn three to four times what was previously possible.
The welfare activity is secular "but this so-called secular work is but an outward expression of an inward spirit — the Spirit of the Lord," he said.
