Yesterday morning I jumped online and was greeted by CNN’s headline “World Food Prices Hit Record High“. This quote from the article keeps running through my mind.
“High global food prices risk hunger for millions of people. Poor people in developing countries spend up to 80% of their income on food. For them high food prices mean selling off their land or sacrificing their child’s education simply to put food on the table.”
I haven’t been able to get this article out of my head. I keep wondering, what is going to happen to all those people who live on less than a dollar a day. What happens now when that dollar doesn’t go as far? What happens when you sit there and watch your family begin to hunger beyond what they normally do? I think about my sister and brother-in-law over in Bangladesh and wonder what the people they meet will experience with this rise in the food cost?
Most of all, I wonder what difference this is going to make in the lives and minds of us in the west? Will we lift a finger to do anything about it? Will it actually matter?
Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8-9
What do you think?
~Peter
2 Comments
Peter, we see this each day. It actually made me cry when I was in church yesterday. Every single person put money in as the offering was taken. They closed their hand around their money and placed their hand inside of the red velvet bag so they could give secretly. I was so moved watching these people giving from the very little bit that they have. What is the percentage of people that tithe in western churches? Some of the men that work in the workshop have only money enough for rice for their families, not vegetables, and certainly not meat. This was actually going to be a part of my blog today. I have been just pondering and processing things after church yesterday morning in a village about 20 minutes away. Wish you were here! You would love being a part of these things. Love you!
Heather, I’m sure that is extraordinarily difficult to watch. I was wondering what it must be like for you all there witnessing this type of poverty. It is difficult to be in the west and be so far from experiencing that type of hunger and pain, I think it makes it so easy to just gloss over headlines like this one. I don’t know anyone personally who only eats rice, but you do. It is encouraging to hear your stories! Please keep sharing them. They are very powerful and will encourage more of us to respond the way that the Church should. I love you too!