The Rev. David Duncombe, a UCC minister and a leader of the global debt relief movement, ended his 46 days of fasting by breaking bread with other advocates. The event was sponsored by the Jubilee USA Network, which represents more than 80 religious denominations and faith communities, human rights, environmental, labor, and community groups.

Encouraged by Duncombe's fast, an Alabama congressman, hungry from a symbolic one-day fast, said Tuesday (Oct. 16) he is promoting another round of international debt relief because previous loan forgiveness has improved health care, education and security in developing countries.

"If you do something that worked so well, you wonder, `Why not go back and do more?'" Rep. Spencer Bachus said.

Bachus is the lead Republican sponsor on the latest attempt to cancel more longstanding international debt, this time for up to 67 countries where even interest payments can be crushing. His motivation is a mix of religious conviction and concern for human rights and national security, and dates to 2000 when the first of two debt relief measures was approved.

"Tens of millions of schoolchildren in Africa alone are attending class that weren't seven years ago," Bachus said. "The fact that their future prospects are so much greater and poverty will begin to fall with education, the benefits of that to our country and to the world are unimaginable."

Bachus and other congressional advocates of debt cancellation ended their 24-hour fast Tuesday morning at a prayer breakfast on Capitol Hill, where religious groups gathered to promote an expanded debt relief bill.

The legislation, known in shorthand as the Jubilee Act of 2007, is sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters, a liberal Democrat from California who acknowledged the unusual partnership she's had with the Alabama conservative. She called their friendship, developed over the debt relief bill, a "miracle."

"We worked together in a way that I never thought we would," Waters said. "We were up early in the morning at meetings, and it has been one of the most delightful experiences I've had in Congress."

The legislation cites some recent examples of what countries have done with the money that otherwise would have been spent paying back loans. Zambia, for instance, in 2006 used its savings of $23.8 million for agricultural and health care projects. In Uganda that same year, almost $60 million was spent addressing electricity shortages, primary education, malaria control, health care and water infrastructure.