Hunger Touches All of US

So I was checking out i-heart.org today, ( the I heart Revolution site) and followed the link to freerice.com. Just through playing the games, you can help feed hungry people. For every answer you get right they donate ten grains of rice, after five minutes or so it really adds up!



A few facts on hunger:

963 million people do not have enough to eat, more than the populations of USA, Canada, and the European Union

Every six seconds a child dies because they are hungry

25,000 people (adults and children) die every day from hunger and related causes.

Lack of vitamin A kills a million infants each year.

For more stats check out http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats.



Pretty crazy, that we live in this 'other world' where this doesn't really touch us. Or does it?

I remember so many times that I fell to my knees in the comfort of my church, "Jesus I want to know you, you seem so far away. Draw me closer I want to know you more." He already answered that cry over two thousand years ago, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Quite simply, to serve others is to serve Jesus, to lay down your life for another is to be like Jesus. Think about how much you can learn about someone by visiting them in the hospital, or by cleaning their house, or by just taking time to talk with them unexpectedly. Think about how much better you understand another person's perspective when you pause your own thoughts long enough to think of theirs. That's the point I think Jesus was trying to get across, when you humble your self enough (think about how humble that the Son of God came to earth as a mere man) and put your self aside, you're becoming like Christ and the veil between you and him is torn, self is on longer in the way.

So yes, hunger touched me (and quite honestly still does) in the form of hungering more for myself, and in that way hunger gripped the starving all the more through my selfishness.

Hunger touches all of us. When we blatantly ignore the cries of the hungry, we are touched by hunger not in the form of starvation, but of gluttony. Hunger and starvation bring yet another under their power. When we ignore or turn away from those who are hungry, not only do we not avoid it, but we become a valuable ally and slave to it. But when we choose to touch back, to touch the starving, we erase a bit more of the darkness that is hunger. When we choose to stop our lives for a moment to reach into another life with love, we push back the injustice reigning over lives. Let's take a stand against all hunger with the one thing that every soul needs, Love.

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 John 3:18