I understand that about 60% of Americans
are overweight. This means they would be better off if they would eat less. It
could also save them money for food, diet pills, and extra medical expenses due
to their weight liability. It is also true that over a billion people are
perpetually hungry and over three thousand children die each day for lack of
medicine and food. 200,000,000 fat
Americans! What if those big ones would
go on a simpler, healthier diet, eating 20% less, spending 20% less for food,
freeing money for some of those dying of deprivation of med and food? How far
would the savings of 20% of overweight dieters go toward to feed the hungry?
(20% of 200 million dieters are 40 million people, to begin with.) Many
overweight ones would also be improving their health and save their lives as
well- as well as saving the lives of 40 million people- for the betterment of
all. Of course the way those 60% eat in America would be on a standard of
living that, finding food and med toward the billion for the kind of food they
eat, would go much beyond the 40 million saved outright, perhaps saving nearly
all of the billion hungry, who knows? No
doubt many of the big ones claim to be Christians. So we have fat Christians-
to save their weight, are letting a billion go hungry. How weird!! With the world’s poor paraded on TV daily,
who can claim ignorance of the situation? In Belize, the hungry knock on our
doors- or walk right in; In America they stare at you in your family room, or
wherever you have your tube. Equally close, they are in the consciousness of
most so-called Christians. And most nearly close their eyes, their minds, their
wallets, and prematurely open their coffins. While the starving poor also enter
an early grave.
An incredible recent TV report
is that Americans waste 40% of the food they buy. Also, that there are 1.8
billion Christians in the world, and 1.2 billion hungry people around the
globe. It is hard to believe that
Americans are that wasteful, and as well that there are 1.8 billion real
Christians in the world. Yet if there is any reality with these figures, the
problem is at least as large as suggested above and the answer just as possible
if real Christians would just wake up to the real world we live in.
(If I need any right to speak out, it
may be in this, that for some years we have done something of what I am
suggesting above, as we shared a fair portion of our income to help meet
the needs of several dozen orphans, fatherless children, and others
under-supplied with what they need for food, medicine, and an education.
Possibly our efforts have saved a few lives and certainly raised the quality
and hope for a better life for these kids and their mothers. I affirm the
statement of one who said that God has given Christians the wealth needed to
meet the needs of the impoverished of the world. It certainly is not God’s
fault that millions are under-supplied.)
The above, of course, doesn’t deal with
some issues that need to be addressed: the logistics of helping people in
oppressive situations where help is difficult to reach, or the underlying
causes of poverty, or the fact that to help people take care of themselves
through job development and economic opportunity should be the ultimate goal.
But the present crises needs to be taken care of while long range answers are
being pursued. Like Somalia has a half million displaced persons struggling to
survive and many relief agencies are pulling out because of instability of the
landscape. Or take Darfur. It may be stretching my pacifism a bit to suggest
it, but what better use of military power than to guard convoys of needed
supplies to the starving in many camps around the world! It used to be said,
where there is a will, there is a way. If Christians cared enough, it would
begin to go a long way to move toward alleviating the desperation of the
impoverished around the world. Just because there are long-range issues to be
resolved is no excuse for Christians not beginning to do all they can, which is
far more than many are willing to do.
