Mana From Heaven -- Jesus Feeding The Five Thousand Series

With the same generosity of Jesus’ disciples, if the number of men folk alone was five thousand, let’s say the total, including women folk and children the number would have been about 6,200 (approximately multiplying the original 3000 by 2)

If this event were to happen in Australia today, at best, with $12 per head for a pack of fish and chips, providing an evening meal for 6200 people would have easily cost $83,328 (including 12% GST). The Gospel says that Jesus only had two fish and five loaves, but he fed every one to the full and had twelve baskets of leftovers.

How did this happen? Did this really happen? What is God saying to us today?

I want to share with you the story that helped me understand the miracle of feeding the five thousand with two fish and five loaves. This story is set in the context of my ministry in the UAE (2010-2015).

One of the main ministries of chaplaincy (in the six emirates, excluding the emirate of Abu Dhabi) is the ministry of the expatriate labour force. This labour force is said to be around 7 million. These are the domestic and construction workers, drivers, maids, and the like. All these menial workers are from developing countries of the world. These labourers are housed in what is known as male and female “Labour Camps.”

Most of the workers, if not all of them, had been exploited even before starting work. When the government calls for tenders for labour jobs, employment agents compete and clinch the tenders. Usually, the lowest bidder wins the tenders. For example, the government may tender one hundred posts for cleaners with a salary of A$ 800 a month. An agent may bid for the tender at $ 600 a month and succeed in obtaining the contract. He would then advertise the job in his own country at $ 450 and make $150 per head in the deal. The agent in the country where the position was advertised will advertise the job at $ 400 and earn $ 50 per head. Then, on top of that loot, the local agent would promise the potential appointees to get them to the UAE with visas for $ 300 and sign a contract with them to sacrifice three months' salary to seal the deal. In the case of young women, sexual briberies too could be expected by both agents.

By the time the men or women gets to work, the salary s/he would get in hand would be about $ 250 per month after deductions for utilities. Sometimes, crooked agents who clinch several substantial contracts from employers or the government would take a year’s payments and abscond. When the people arrive at the airport, they are abandoned and become the responsibility of the consulate of the country they had come from to repatriate them back home empty-handed. Those who are successful get housed in a labour camp and start work there under horrific conditions.

One such labour camp is the Sonapur Labour camp for men. There are 200,000 men housed at this camp. About 15 men would be expected to live in one bedroom furnished with bunker beds. Kitchen and toilet facilities are shared between about fifty residents (see the pictures on the screen that I took during my ministry there). The bed is one’s only personal space.