In continuance of reflections on the international days of importance, as designated by the United Nations, I have found a rhythm in a cycle of intercession; to pray through this secular calendar with an eye to its applications in faith. Today is known as World Pulse Day, defined as a day to raise awareness of food security and sustainable agriculture – a label perhaps prompting two crucial questions: what is food security, or conversely, food insecurity ... and what are pulses?
Food security is when people have regular access to enough nutritious food to lead healthy and active lives. This definition encompasses both acute hunger and chronic hunger: a complete definition of chronic hunger “includes when people do not have enough food—or enough nutritious food—over a long period of time…. It is estimated that up to 720 million people are facing hunger worldwide and do not enjoy ‘food security,’ meaning they do not have regular access to enough nutritious food to live healthy and active lives.” 1
Pulses are a staple in many diets worldwide. Otherwise known as beans or legumes - specifically, the seed of a legume: chickpeas, black-eyed pea, split peas, adzuki beans, black beans, kidney beans, soya beans, and white beans – to name just a few varieties.
Pulses provide substantial nutritional benefits: being rich in protein, high in fibre, and containing essential vitamins and minerals. Additionally, pulses contribute to sustainable agriculture by combatting soil degradation and enhancing soil fertility.
Scripture records grains and pulses as fundamental components of the ancient diet - as observed in the story of King David who, while fleeing his son Absalom, received provisions for his army and household:
“Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me choose twelve thousand men,
and I will arise and pursue David tonight. I will come upon him
while he is weary and discouraged” …
When David came to Mahanaim, {three gentiles} brought beds, basins, and
earthen vessels, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds
and sheep and cheese from the herd, for David and the people with him to eat,
for they said, ‘The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.’”
~ 1 Samuel 17:1-2, 27-29
We see King David in this story as a wanderer without home due to conflict … weary and discouraged … and offered provisions, including beans and lentils, while he sojourned in the wilderness.
Similarly, around the world, people living as refugees or in Internally Displaced Peoples camps face a wilderness marked by uncertainty, loss, and hardship. And just as the gentiles sustained David in his wilderness, so we too, extend support and food to those who are weary and discouraged in their wandering. In 2025, we partnered with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and a local non-government humanitarian organization in the Middle East to provide food aid baskets for eight months to 950 households in four camps – helping to support and feed 7,229 women, men, and children! These food baskets included grains, oil, salt … and also, beans – this nutritious pulse plays an important role in emergency food rations.
In one of these camps, 20% of the households who received food baskets are headed by women – women who absorb the conflict, climate and economic shocks that batter their lives. Lack of access to employment and livelihoods are hampering efforts to shift from emergency response to durable solutions. The distribution of emergency rations helps these vulnerable families begin to think beyond their next meal. “The project has given us the opportunity to think more about living and not just surviving,” said one mother. “We have begun to think about educating our children instead of only being concerned with how we can feed them.” The sustained distributions reduced the need for families receiving rations to rely on child labor, and some children who had been spending their days collecting plastic waste to sell for recycling before the project stopped working and enrolled in school.
In another camp, Nadine* is a 45-year-old mother of nine children who fled their home, along with her husband who suffers from a spinal condition that prevents him from working. Since there was no food or livelihood assistance available for families in the camp, Nadine’s children would leave the camp early in the morning and go to a local market where they would beg, typically returning with enough to buy a kilogram of flour. “Sometimes there would be nothing at all to eat in our tent, and the children would go to sleep hungry,” Nadine said. “I would stay awake next to them and cry as they fell asleep with empty stomachs – my husband and I were unable to do anything for them. We were not living.” After the food basket distributions began, Nadine spoke of her gratitude for the food: “When the food baskets arrived at the camp, it was as if we were born again. Everything was available right in our own tent. My children went to sleep happy, and they woke up happy because they had something to eat. We have even started to feel as if we are not displaced. These baskets are making us forget the reality that we are still living as displaced people.”
We are grateful for all who have donated through our Food Aid account or The Alliance account at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. Collectively, through our partnerships, we are bringing light in their dark wilderness and hope in their discouragement and weariness.
~ ~ ~
“O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
These all look to you, to give them their food in due season.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.”
~Psalm 104:24, 27
Would you pray with us that those around the world afflicted by conflict would receive food and be filled with good things from God’s open hand.
_______________________
1 https://foodgrainsbank.ca/why-we-exist/
* name changed for security