The World Is Hungry

I started reading a book today called Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.

I was told I would really like the book and have trouble putting it down. Although I'm not even into the meat of the book, I know it's true.

I'm really just going to pull some quotes from the book that I felt conveyed ideas of importance.

"The Alarins are a poor Filipino family. Mr. Alarin makes 70 cents on good days as an ice vendor. Several nights a month Mrs. Alarin stays up all night to make coconut sweet that she sells on the street. Total income for her midnight toil is 40 cents. Cooking utensils are their only furniture. The family had not tasted meat for a month when the president of World Vision visited them and wrote this account:

'Tears washed her dark, sunken eye-sockets as she spoke: "I feel so sad when my children cry at night because they have no food. I know my life will never change. What can I do to solve my problems? I am so worried about the future of my children. I want them to go to school, but how can we afford it? I am sick most of the time, but I can't go to the doctor because each visit costs two pesos [28 cents] and the medicine is extra. What can I do?' She broke down into quiet sobbing. I admit without shame that I wept with her."

"A former president of World Vission visited the home of Sebastian and Maria Nascimento, a poor Brazilian couple whose home was a one-room, thatched lean-to with a sand floor. Inside, one stool, a charcoal hibachi, and four cots covered with sacks partly filled with straw were the only furniture. He wrote this heartrending account about his visit:

'My emotions could scarecly take in what I saw and heard. The three-year-old twins, lying naked and unmoving on a small cot, were in the last act of their personal drama. Mercifully, the curtain was coming down on their brief appearance. Malnutrition was the villain. The two-year-old played a silent role, his brain already vegetating from marasmus, a severe form of malnutrition.
The father is without work. Both he and Maria are anguished over their existence, but they are too proud to beg. He tries to shine shoes. Maria cannot talk about their condition. She tries, but the words just will not come. Her mother's love is deep and tender, and the daily deterioration of her children is more than she can bear. Tears must be the vocabulary of the anguished soul.'"

"Before he got AIDS a hardworking father sold milk from his goats to provide for his wife and family. When he fell ill, he used the children's school fee money to pay for traditional medicine. Finally, he sold two goats so he could visit a clinic--only to discover that it was AIDS that was devastating not only him, but his wife and their toddler. His wife sold another goat to pay for his funeral. All the goats were gone by the time the wife died.
Two daughters, nine and ten, were left to take care of their dying brother. When they visited their grandmother, she told them they must take care of themselves, becauseh she was already caring for five grandchildren orphaned by AIDS. All she could give them was a cardboard box--a coffin to bury their dying brother."

"The most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living... The Commission believes that promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to U.S. national security than most policy makers acknowledge or even believe. Since the advent of nuclear weapons, most Americans have been conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military forces. The Commissin considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic illusion."

- The U.S. Presidential Commission on World Hunger

"What will Christians do in this time of swelling affluence and persistent poverty? Will we dare to remember that the God we worship tells us that 'whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord' (Prov. 19:17)? Will Christians have the courage to seek justice for the poor, even if that means disapproval by affluent neighbors?"

...

"In an age of affluence and poverty, most Christians, regardless of theological labels, are tempted to succumb to the heresy of following society's materialistic values rather than biblical truth. Advertisements offer demonically convincing justifications for enjoying our affluence while neglecting billions of poor neighbors."

These are issues I've felt convicted about lately. I've done much less about it in my own life than I have done speaking about it. I think this book will continue to paint a picture of what it looks like to practically follow Jesus in response to the poor in this world, as well as give the motivation to change accordingly.

What are your feelings?