Poverty is Human
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I’ve been getting some concerned looks today. The concern is around how I am feeling. Several who have shown concern have asked, “Are you hungry?” “Do you feel okay?” “You gonna make it?” These questions have come from those who know me and are aware that I am only spending $1.50 per day on food.
Their concern is genuine, because they know me and care about me. They have seen how little there is to eat and when I do eat it’s rice and beans with an occasional egg.
This has caused me to reflect on the problem of hunger. When it is right in front of involving someone we know it becomes more important. So we ask questions and concern ourselves with the hunger that our friends are experiencing.
But I wonder. How many days do we go about our business without once considering those who eat on less than $1.50 per day everyday? Perhaps it’s because those who are starving are not right in front of us. So out of sight out of mind. Perhaps it’s because we have little connection to the problem, so we can forget about it most of the time.
However, when it’s in the midst of our daily routines and connected to those we care about it suddenly becomes … well, human.
It’s easy to write and speak about the 1.4 billion who are hungry. But when those statistics become faces, names, personalities it’s harder to ignore. When a number becomes a son, a husband, a father, a brother – someone like me – suddenly we can see that it’s not right.
We can never forget that those who are hungry are every bit as human as we are. They deserve the ability to be nourished every bit as much as you and I do. Why? Because they are human beings – made in the image and likeness of a loving God. The same God who said, “There does not need to be any poor among you …”
The reason extreme poverty is such an insidious reality is because it is a human problem. The good news is we can change that, one person at a time.
Below are two of the many organizations through which you can help a child by sponsoring them. In doing this you can provide for the basic needs of food, clean water and sanitation. You also give this child hope for the future through funding their education.
Perhaps today is the day that you make the reality of poverty human, and allow the numbers to become a face and a name.
For more information visit:
You can also join me as I Live Below the Line:
*The above photo is one that I took of three boys I spent time with while in Mathare, a slum community in Nairobi, Kenya.