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Date: June 10, 2005
Contact: Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
V: 847/742-5100 F:  847/742-6103
E-MAIL: CoBNews@AOL.Com

CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN	NEWSLINE
June 10, 2005

`Hunger No More' brings more than 1,500 to  Washington National Cathedral.

June 10, 2005 (Elgin, IL) -- Some 1,500  people filled the National Cathedral

in Washington, D.C., on June 6, on the eve  of National Hunger Awareness Day.

"It was an historic event gathering people of  many traditions and faiths 
together with the unifying desire to overcome hunger  in our lifetime," said
Stan 
Noffinger, general secretary of the Church of the  Brethren General Board, 
following the worship convocation titled "Hunger No  More." The event
surpassed 
all expectations of the planners, he  said.

With sponsorship from the Alliance to End Hunger, Bread for the  World, 
America's Second Harvest, the National Food Bank, Call to Renewal, and	the 
Interfaith Anti-Hunger Coordinators, the convocation brought more than 40 
religious 
leaders of various faith traditions together in a moving service of  worship,

Noffsinger said. The Church of the Brethren General Board, and the  Brethren 
Witness/Washington Office, were endorsers of the event. At least six  Church
of 
the Brethren leaders and staff were in attendance, including  Noffsinger and 
co-executive director of On Earth Peace Barbara  Sayler.

"Participants set aside the differences that tend to divide the  faith 
traditions to address the increasing incidence of hunger in the US," 
Noffsinger 
said. Different faith traditions shared leadership of the worship.  The
keynote 
speaker was Anglican archbishop Njongonkulu W.H. Ndungane of Cape  Town,
South 
Africa, whose life story includes imprisonment as a political  prisoner under

apartheid law. "I know hunger firsthand," he said, reminding  worshipers that

in the US, the richest country in the world, hunger is	increasing. He called

on people of faith to speak loudly and clearly to end  hunger, with the goal 
of food for everyone being a human right. "The promise of  heaven is no more 
hunger," he said. "But...the plight of the hungry must not be  left for
heaven."

In the last four years, decades of progress in	shrinking the numbers of the 
hungry in the US have been reversed, Noffsinger  said. Bread for the World 
said in its annual hunger report for 2004 that 853  million people worldwide
are 
hungry, he reported. Of that number, 36 million in  the US are "food 
insecure," meaning that they do not always know if they will  have access to
safe and 
nutritious food at their next meal, he said.

Just  prior to the convocation, faith leaders met in an "upper room" of the  
cathedral--stories above the streets of Washington--to discuss the issues. A 
new  coalition was formed, Noffsinger said, to bring the plight of the hungry

into  the awareness of each denomination and faith group represented. The
group 
signed	a common letter to the President of the United States, which was 
delivered by a	small delegation which met with White House staff on June 7.
The 
letter	encouraged the President to provide strong leadership in "protecting 
the  national nutrition programs from funding cuts and damaging structural 
changes.  We also ask you to use this year's G8 Summit to increase
development 
assistance  and debt relief and to forge trade policies that will help to
reduce 
hunger,  poverty, and disease in Africa and other poor parts of the world." 
Participants  at the convocation gathered for training June 7 to prepare for
a 
major lobbying	effort on hunger issues later that day.

Paul Wolfowitz, the new president  of the World Bank, unexpectedly joined the

convocation worship service,  Noffsinger said, adding that Wolfowitz received

"a warm welcome" from the  religious leaders and convocation attendees.

For more information and  links to the webcast of the convocation,  see
www.bread.org/nationalgathering/2005/convocation.htm.

The Church  of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to 
continuing the work of	Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its
faith in 
community. The	denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith 
traditions and is one  of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrates
its 300th 
anniversary in	2008. It counts about 130,000 members across the United 
States and Puerto Rico,  and has missions and sister churches in Brazil, the 
Dominican Republic, Haiti,  and  Nigeria.

# # #

For more information contact:

Cheryl	Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News Services
Church of the Brethren General	Board
1451 Dundee Ave.
Elgin, IL 60120
847-742-5100 ext.  260
cbrumbaugh-cayford_gb@brethren.org

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The  Church of the Brethren Newsline is produced by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford,

 director of news services for the Church of the Brethren General Board. 
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