17 Million
Right now, this very day, 17 million children do not know where their next meal is going to come from. That's 17 million children who will shut their eyes to go to sleep tonight without the assurance of a meal tomorrow--an assurance folks like me (and no doubt any of you who read this) take foolishly for granted. By the way, those 17 million children don't live in mud huts in sub-Saharan Africa, or rocky caves in the parched climate of the Middle East; they live right here, in the "good ol' U.S. of A," and in case you forgot, that's 17 MILLION CHILDREN.
I heard that news as I was headed out the door this morning to church, but as if that news wasn't enough to make me feel like a worthless bastard in my blue suit, holding my mug of coffee, my wife shared a different bit of news with me that troubled me the rest of the day.
She said that a fellow teacher in her school once gave some students some books to take home and read. She gave them to them to keep and read. The next day, however, she asked the children if they had read any of the books. They said, "No." In fact, they went on to tell her, they ate them! Yes. They ate pages from the books she gave them, because they had nothing else to eat! If that doesn't sour the food in your belly just a little bit, then you must be less than human, and in no way able to call yourself Christian.
This is the 21st century, better yet, this is America. Children should not have to be hungry to the point of resorting to eating the cheaply bound pages of a book. Seventeen million children should not even have to think about whether or not they will have food tomorrow; in fact, in a nation that wastes about as much as it consumes, NO ONE should have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. Yet somehow, people in this country are so blinded by their own "right to make a profit" that they refuse to see those around them who suffer on account of their success. Shame on them. Shame on me. Shame on all of us. Because we are all to blame for those 17 million children who go to bed tonight without the security of their next meal. We are all to blame for our sins of selfishness, greed, and most of all, apathy. May God have mercy on us all and grant us the chances to begin to set things right.
CPT
I heard that news as I was headed out the door this morning to church, but as if that news wasn't enough to make me feel like a worthless bastard in my blue suit, holding my mug of coffee, my wife shared a different bit of news with me that troubled me the rest of the day.
She said that a fellow teacher in her school once gave some students some books to take home and read. She gave them to them to keep and read. The next day, however, she asked the children if they had read any of the books. They said, "No." In fact, they went on to tell her, they ate them! Yes. They ate pages from the books she gave them, because they had nothing else to eat! If that doesn't sour the food in your belly just a little bit, then you must be less than human, and in no way able to call yourself Christian.
This is the 21st century, better yet, this is America. Children should not have to be hungry to the point of resorting to eating the cheaply bound pages of a book. Seventeen million children should not even have to think about whether or not they will have food tomorrow; in fact, in a nation that wastes about as much as it consumes, NO ONE should have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. Yet somehow, people in this country are so blinded by their own "right to make a profit" that they refuse to see those around them who suffer on account of their success. Shame on them. Shame on me. Shame on all of us. Because we are all to blame for those 17 million children who go to bed tonight without the security of their next meal. We are all to blame for our sins of selfishness, greed, and most of all, apathy. May God have mercy on us all and grant us the chances to begin to set things right.
CPT
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