200 campers at Bible Camp learned a powerful lesson tonight. I did as well. We had a little experiential education at dinner in an attempt to teach the campers that we in the United States are among the richest 10% of the world's population. The 200 were divided into five equal groups differentiated by a color sticker. The orange group was allowed to eat all they wanted at dinner. The red group was allowed to eat a smaller portion of everything and no dessert. The blue group got only rice, a dinner roll, lettuce and dressing. The green group received only rice, a roll and water. The yellow group was given only rice and water. Oh boy, you should have heard the cheers and groans. Really, this is an important lesson that all Americans should experience since every 3.6 seconds a person dies of hunger, the majority of those being children.But I learned something about hunger tonight that the campers might have missed. Now remember the groups were divided equally, but in actuality it didn't work out that way. As I stood and watched the campers come up for food there was easily three campers with orange stickers for every one camper with yellow. I don't know how they did it but many of the campers cheated to make sure they got as much food as they wanted. Lesson: if you are friends with someone "in the know" or someone who has connections you did great because you got you the sticker you wanted. But, if you didn't have such a connection with someone "in power" you were stuck with the sticker you were dealt. Dog eat dog.
It works that way globally as well. If you have connections with those who are powerful and rich you do just fine. Can you believe that for about half of what Americans spend on pet supplies a year we could put an end to hunger areas of severe famine? I guess a lot of us have connections with those who are rich and powerful cause we do just fine. Even though there is an abundance of money and food in the world people in power continue to cheat the system to make sure they have more than the rest.
In Revelation the "black horsemen" reveals a truth about our sinful world by describing such unjust famine. People are starving, not because there's not enough food, but because people cheat the system so food is distributed unfairly. "I looked and there was a black horse! Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying. 'A quart of wheat for a day's pay, and three quarts of barley for a day's pay, but do not damage the olive oil and wine (Rev. 6:5b-6).'" Those with little must pay a day's wages to get enough food for only one person. Those who are rich, the ones who use olive oil and wine, are unharmed. This is not a vision of the future as much as it is a commentary of the way sinful life has always been, certainly is today, and will continue to be until the Kingdom of God is fully realized.
In the Kingdom of God no one goes hungry. As disciples of Christ, agents for his Kingdom, we are called to live that vision right now. It should be the priority of every Christian to fight hunger locally, nationally and globally. It is an abomination that children of God continue to starve to death every 3.6 seconds.
Fight world hunger right now by supporting organizations like Bread for the Word (www.bread.org), World Vision (www.worldvision.org), Church World Service (www.churchworldservice.org), CARE (www.care.org), or Lutheran World Relief (www.lwr.org).
1 comment:
Food prices have doubled in three years, according to the World Bank,
sparking riots in Egypt and Haiti and in many African nations. Brazil,
Vietnam, India and Egypt have all imposed food export restrictions.
In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty"
Every year 15 million children die of hunger
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!
The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.
One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture
The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy
Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. UNICEF
3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.
In the U.S. hunger and race are related. In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children.
The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants.
One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.
Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death
About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age
To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger
It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year.
Post a Comment