Thursday, December 08, 2005

What is Our Role?

What is our role in stopping hunger?

I know that is such a big question. Tonight I went to a talk on hunger and South America. It was related to Christianity in that Christ, whatever you believe about him, did call his followers to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, minister to the sick, etc. And so as a Christian, technically speaking, I should be doing this.

But how? Does that mean that I literally walk out the door and go find the next Harry I meet and buy him groceries? Cause honestly, I've done that. And it may have gone well for one round. It seems like such a never ending problem even HERE, where we have resources. Then to expand that to South America, Asia, Africa... how can I make a difference?

I think first I need to be educated. I need to know what the issues are, I need to discern what is valuable for me to be invovled in, and avoid the tendency towards throwing money at something and hoping it'll do something good. I think donating and contributing is so valuable and important, but I think it is almost harmful to just toss a $50 at XYZ charity without knowing to whom and how they make thier "difference."

So what I want to know is... what do YOU think YOUR role is in all this? Is it just something that we can ignore? That one person starves to death every 4 seconds- is that something we can just "That's their problem" away? I don't know... I'm pretty sure I hear awful things like that all the time. And yet here I am, over eating, wasting my money on stuff I don't need, serving only myself with my reasources.

So how do we move forward?

Check out how these people are.

1 comments:

melissa o said...

Have I ever told you that this is one of the reasons I apprecaite you? You are so intelligent and you make me think and want to do something to benefit this world.

Love you!