The Shed That Fed a Million Children: The Mary’s Meals Story

The Shed That Fed a Million Children: The Mary’s Meals Story
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow

Speaking Volumes Christian Book of the Year 2016Mary’s Meals is born from acts of love. If you put all those many acts of sacrifice together it creates a beautiful thing.Mary’s Meals tells the inspirational and compelling story of how a cripplingly shy Salmon farmer from Argyll, Scotland, became the international CEO of a global charity that now feeds over 800,000 children a day.In 1992, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow was enjoying a pint with his brother when he got an idea that would change his life – and radically change the lives of others. After watching a news bulletin about war-torn Bosnia, the two brothers agreed to take a week’s hiatus from work to help.What neither of them expected is that what began as a one-time road trip in a beaten-up Landrover rapidly grew to become Magnus’s life’s work – leading him to leave his job, sell his house and direct all his efforts to feeding thousands of the world’s poorest children.Magnus retells how a series of miraculous circumstances and an overwhelming display of love from those around him led to the creation of Mary’s Meals; an organisation that could hold the key to eradicating child hunger altogether. This humble, heart-warming yet powerful story has never been more relevant in our society of plenty and privilege. It will open your eyes to the extraordinary impact that one person can make.

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Copyright (#u7f0fd686-32b1-581d-b684-60892ef9031c)

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2015

Copyright © Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow 2015

Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008127640

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780008132712

Version: 2015-12-15

Dedication (#u7f0fd686-32b1-581d-b684-60892ef9031c)

This book is for Julie, without whom there would

have been nothing at all to write about.

Thank you for loving me.

Contents

Cover (#uae19ff05-a1e1-5651-ab15-0473a9465eea)

Title Page (#ulink_df4a8748-d1ac-5342-9639-b66710c96841)

Copyright (#ulink_034ff840-7b27-50da-b30b-32313065de45)

Dedication (#ulink_afb3c532-e894-5366-a251-5d3f63a1317f)

Prologue (#ulink_c03c16c8-4602-5565-bbda-9f916ba876df)

1 Driving Lessons in a War Zone (#ulink_73f349e2-2b0d-5f6f-9fa5-bc05027ff94b)

2 A Woman Clothed with the Sun (#ulink_cb378054-baa3-5509-a794-97eae942e563)

3 Little Acts of Love (#ulink_18141b07-ed5c-5f72-ae92-f63c3676ff4d)

4 Suffer Little Children (#ulink_f3b0e7f3-bbeb-543b-a864-ffe4fc637def)

5 Into Africa (#litres_trial_promo)

6 A Famine Land (#litres_trial_promo)

7 One Cup of Porridge (#litres_trial_promo)

8 A Bumpy Road to Peace (#litres_trial_promo)

9 In Tinsel Town (#litres_trial_promo)

10 Reaching the Outcastes (#litres_trial_promo)

11 Friends in High Places (#litres_trial_promo)

12 Friends in Low Places (#litres_trial_promo)

13 Generation Hope (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Thank you … (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#u7f0fd686-32b1-581d-b684-60892ef9031c)

I am writing this in my father’s shed. An east wind is blowing from behind Ben Lui, whose snow-powdered flanks I can see through the window above my desk. Some of the cold air buffeting and moaning around my corrugated-iron shelter has found a way in. There is a draught gnawing my feet. I can hear someone using a power saw in the distance, perhaps my brother-in-law at the firewood, and every so often a tractor chugs down the track towards the farm.