Hunger: The Food Crisis Hits Ethiopia

Author CMK on May 21st, 2008

Unicef is announcing today that there are 126,000 children in Ethiopia who are in dire need of nutritional assistance which has become increasingly difficult to provide due to the current food crisis. “It is extremely unfortunate that the combined effects of drought, food price hikes, and insufficient resources for preventive measures, resulted in an emergency that jeopardizes significant child survival gains in Ethiopia,” said Unicef Representative, Bjorn Ljungqvist. They are requesting 50 million dollars in funds in order to address this need. In the midst of a month filled with disasters, it is sad to see my beloved Ethiopia added to the list.

Watch a video about the crisis.

Read about it on CNN or BBC.

Give to Oxfam or World Vision.

Pray for children and parents, for abundance and hope.

Finally, Seth over at Atypical Spirituality has posed a good question earlier this week. “What can the church do on a world-wide scale to change these matters (the world food crisis)?” I’ll leave you with my response. What do you think?

Cancel church services for the summer. Take the money spent of electricity, church bulletins, projector light bulbs and help people buy rice. Take the time freed up to till under the church’s lawn and start a community garden. Use the produce generated to reduce the amount that families spend at the grocery store and share in the harvest by eating and working together. Invite those in our communities to participate and help families eat who are struggling right around us.

Oh, and while we’re at it. Let pastors start preaching (before the summer shut down) about people becoming more like Jesus and actually walking places. For those with commutes, carpooling could be encouraged. In fact, churches with large charter buses could take their entire congregations to work each day. Of course, there is always the city bus where you’ll find the wonderful opportunity to actually interact with people of different cultures and socio-economic statuses.

I believe that there is so much that we can do. We don’t need a big program, but simple, radical steps taken by Christian communities to actually embody what Jesus called us to be about. The question should not be “What can we give from our abundance to help people eat?” We should ask what we are willing to give up to for our brother and sister around the world, or in our own backyard. Until we get there, we frankly don’t care.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [Technorati] [Email] More »
permalinkRead More CommentComments (1) CatUncategorized

One Response to “Hunger: The Food Crisis Hits Ethiopia”

  1. CMK Says:
    May 22nd, 2008 at 7:05 pm

    UN announces that worlds poorest countries may pay 40 percent more for food than this time last year. Read the Article from CNN

Leave a Reply

CSS Template by RamblingSoul | Tomodachi theme by Theme Lab and Online Marketing