TRIBUTES PAID TO FOUNDER OF UNIQUE "WASTE INTO TASTE" PROGRAM

THE FOUNDER OF a unique feeding program and a senior leader of one of the world's largest missionary organizations has died aged 71.

Wally Wenge's Gleanings for the Hungry ministry has helped feed thousands of people around the world for almost 20 years, by recycling surplus produce from the heartland of America's fruit-growing region.

Shipments of dried peaches and nectarines - processed at Gleanings' plant in Sultana, California - and raisins have gone to more than 20 countries, including North Korea, China, Ukraine and Mexico. The food supplements are distributed by local churches and missionaries working in the area.

A member of Youth With A Mission's international council for 25 years, Wenge died last month from a progressive lung disease. A former department store executive, he first served with the mission in 1972 when he helped organize an international evangelistic outreach at the Olympic Games in Munich.

Subsequently he helped establish YWAM ministries in Switzerland and Hawaii, and worked with teams serving among the Cambodian refugees who fled to Thailand following the Khmer Rouge takeover.

Seeing the needs of the hungry led him in 1982 to establish Gleanings - which takes its name from the Old Testament practice of leaving parts of the harvest-time crop for the destitute. With a handful of full-time staff supplemented by around 600 volunteers during the processing season, the ministry produces around 200,000 llbs of dried fruit - with a commercial value of almost $1 million - each year.

In his 60s, Wenge took to the road on three marathon cycle rides - from Canada to Mexico, California to Virginia, and down the East Coast - to raise awareness of and money for Gleanings.

A father of five, with 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, Wenge was honored by several of YWAM's international leaders who attended the funeral. Don Stephens, President of YWAM's Mercy Ships' division, paid tribute to his "integrity, honesty and perserverance".

Unable to be there in person, YWAM founder and international chairman Loren Cunningham spoke to the service via a satellite link from the South Atlantic, where he was sailing home from a ministry trip to a remote island. He remembered Wenge's "loyalty, honesty and dependability".

Over the years Gleanings has developed a sophisticated processing plant at the 21.6-acre site in the San Joaquin Valley fruit region, taking crops discarded by local growers because blemishes make them unsuitable for sale. Wenge said that the dried produce "put a tool in the hands of missionaries, because they say that empty bellies have no ears".

(Photo available on request)

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