On average 25,000 people die each day from hunger, and they don’t have to. Whenever I participate at a Rise Against Hunger event at the church I am left with conflicting feelings. The greatest miracle of Jesus was the feeding of the 5,000 and his order to Peter upon his resurrection was, “Feed my sheep.” Yet, 25,000 human being starve to death every single day.
With our wealth and resources we could end this crisis. Think about this. Yesterday our church in 1.5 hours packed 14,000 meals. That was in two hours at one church. There are between 350,000 and 400,000 churches in the United States. If every church did a Rise Against Hunger event that would be between 4.9 and 5.6 billion meals. On the low end that would be enough to feed every single person that is going to starve today for 179 years.
That is the true power that Christians have and the power they waste. Look at any online Christian community during June and the discussion isn’t about trying to feed the hungry or end world hunger, but about who’s hooking up with whom and why that’s wrong because one or two lines in the entire Bible say that it maybe, could possibly, be a sin.
I’ll tell you what a sin is. Having the power to end world hunger and not doing so. If even half the Christian churches in the United States held a Rise Against Hunger even world hunger would all but cease to exist, and this is just the power of 80 people working for 1.5 hours. Imagine if we used food packing machines or worked for double or triple that time.
World hunger is the biggest problem we could solve and are doing nothing about, and why? We look at that first number of 25,000 people starve to death every day, multiple it by 365, and consider our effort of 14,000 meals to be a band-aid on a bullet wound. We never think to the next step or do further math, and see the true power of a united Christian effort could save the world.
It is also at these times that I reflect on my own effort. After participating in Rise Against Hunger my family and I went to Beach Bully BBQ and enjoyed oversized portions of chicken and ribs and sides with sweet tea and soda. Here we are enjoying the abundance of our lives while there are people starving around the world.
I could do more, but will I? When Monday comes I will go right back to my work effort to make a few extra dollars and cents to pay off debt and other obligations of the abundant while there are people in the world who don’t even have access to clean drinking water.
Repeated trips to Taco Bell and Nando’s Peri Peri during the week aren’t doing my wallet any good, but couldn’t I cease those actions, set aside that $10-15, enjoy a much more sensible lunch, and give my savings to Rise Against Hunger? I could and should, but more than that I should encourage others to do the same. More importantly I should encourage others to participate in these events. I should start a goal to have a nationwide Rise Against Hunger event in as many churches and anywhere else that wishes to participate as possible.
This is a problem the world could solve, but we choose not to. All it takes is 1.5 hours one morning across the nation and we might not end world hunger, but we’d put a big dent in it.
David Huzzard Writes 