7 billion people on this earth
1 billion of those people are malnourished
1 out of ever 3 children in developing countries are hungry
6 million children will die from hunger related causes this year
16 million children are hungry in the United States
1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day
About 33% of the people on this planet claim to be Christians
Median household income for Americans is around $52,000 a year
Sources: http://www.chfus.org/en/problem-hunger.html, http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm,
Why all these numbers? Why all these statistics? Sometimes numbers and statistics can be hard to wrap our heads around. It’s easy to ignore numbers and statistics. It’s not so easy to ignore faces. It’s not so easy to ignore stories.
God has been breaking my heart recently with these faces and stories as well as with His Word. It’s hard for me to even put all of my thoughts into words. So, I’ll just start with my story.
Being a teacher, you see so many innocent little faces every day. You also hear the stories of how these children live. These things make my job so hard. I’m expected to be a miracle worker who can teach these children the things they need to know to be successful while they are dealing with so much at home. They are dealing with things I never dreamed of as a child and some things I never dreamed of as an adult. My eyes have been opened by my job and my heart breaks for these innocent little lives. My eyes have also been opened to the number of children who don’t have enough to eat once they get home. The school I work at has a wonderful “Backpack Buddies” program that sends food home on Fridays with students who are in need. I started to have a strong desire to do more to help the very children I work with every day.
I have about a 20-minute drive one way to work. Therefore, I have about 40 minutes that I decided could be used more wisely. I recently started listening to podcasts of sermons some days on my way to and from work. One day I was listening to a sermon on materialism. This was a 2-part sermon and on this particular day I was listening to part 2. This pastor had been speaking on materialism and after a few minutes he started talking to this young woman about her mission work in Uganda. Her story captivated me. As soon as I got home, I googled her and found out she was Katie Davis. Katie is only a few months younger than me, but she has followed God’s calling on her life and is impacting people’s lives. For more on Katie, you can visit: https://www.facebook.com/amazima?sk=wall, http://www.amazima.org/index.html, or http://www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/. Katie also wrote a book called Kisses from Katie. I HIGHLY recommend that you read this book. I cried for the majority of the first few chapters and several times after that. God used this book to open my eyes again and to begin to break my heart for those who are hurting.
Through my own observations, reading of blogs and books, listening to sermons, and reading the Bible, I have discovered we have some major problems. There are 1 BILLION hungry people in our world! There are 1.4 BILLION people who live on less than $1.25 a day. What do we do with $1.25? We would spend that much on 1 CANDY BAR!!! How many of you have spent $100 or close to $100 on one new pair of jeans or maybe one new pair of shoes? With that same $100, you could have fed a starving family for months.
Many American Christians, myself included, have a huge gap between what we say we believe and how we are actually living. Most of us are like the rich, young ruler whose story is told in Mark 10. He approached Jesus and asked what one must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him that he knew the commandments, but he lacked one thing. He told him “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21) This story isn’t saying that every Christian should sell all their possessions and give everything to the poor. It’s about not letting anything keep us from following Jesus. If God asked us to give up something to serve him or help someone else, would we be willing to?
How often did Jesus say that you would recognize Christians by their fruit? James 2:14-17 tells us “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deed? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical need, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” Similarly, 1 John 3:17-18 says “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
God did not call us to sit idly by while people STARVE TO DEATH! Maybe the reason God has so richly blessed us is so that we can bless others. Even if you don’t consider yourself “blessed” by American standards, you are more blessed than the majority of the world.
1 billion people around the world are malnourished while the majority of us in America have the opposite problem. We’re fat or obese. How sad is that? We have the OPPOSITE problem!
So, why am I saying all this? Because I want to do something about it. Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were love God and love your neighbor as yourself. AS YOURSELF-do you want yourself to be starving? I didn’t think so.
I am committing myself to work on improving my couponing skills as well as drastically cutting how much we spend on food. Our pantry and refrigerator are full of food. We often throw away food because we cook too much or have so much that it goes bad. I want that to stop. I want to begin to buy only what we need. I want to cut back on the amount of snacks and other excess we have. However, I don’t want to cut our “grocery budget.” I want to give away the extra money that we have budgeted for groceries that we don’t use. I also want to use my couponing skills to get extra food that can be donated to my school’s Backpack Buddy program or a local food pantry. We personally have chose to donate our extra money to the Children’s Hunger Fund.
I’m not telling you this to brag on myself. This is not my doing. I want to brag on God. I would not be doing this if He was not at work in my life. (I like food too much). I also want to tell you this to keep myself accountable. Now that I’ve told you, I can’t back down. I’m not saying that I won’t fail. I’m not saying that I’ll never treat myself or spend more than I should, but I want to make an honest effort to improve. I’m also tell you this because I hope to inspire you. But please, don’t take my word for it. Research it for yourself.
I can’t end world hunger and poverty by myself, but I can be faithful to what God has called me to do and I can make a difference. Will you make a difference, too?
