This morning I went through our refrigerator, sifted through the personal snacks, the yogurt, chocolate bars, and cans of pop. I pulled out all of the forgotten food from nights past. And as I tossed the 3 containers of spoiled soup, the wilting and now rotting salad, and the guacamole that was so brown it looked like dark chocolate over the back fence for the chickens to peck at I had an incredible stab of conscience.
What am I doing here? Am I here to live like a North American?
Our teams are working at different care points this month, after school programs that provide children, supported and sponsored by North Americans and others like ourselves who are rich, with a bowl of nutrient loaded porridge because their parents are so poor they can’t even feed their children 3 square meals a day.
Now before I continue, let me explain why I put the word rich in parentheses. The definition of the word rich in North America is very different from most other places in the world. Here in Africa you are rich if you have a few extra bucks in your pocket, if you have a pair of sunglasses, if you can afford to own as many clothes as I am carrying around in my pack for the year; which to me is not much, but to the little 5 year old girl at my team’s care point who has been wearing the same filthy shirt and threadbare skirt with no underwear for at least the last two weeks is a small fortunes worth of clothing. Now that I have explained this, back to my initial point.
I have had kids, little ones, fall asleep on me in the middle of the day. Not so much from exhaustion from doing anything, but from extreme hunger and malnourishment. They are tired simply because they are not receiving the daily nutrition that they need to function as they were created to. My little threadbare 5 year old and her 2 brothers can be found at our care point mid-morning everyday, they sit on the playground simply waiting until 2 o’clock, when Mama Ruby and the other women that work at the centre begin to dish out the bowls of porridge. I am pretty sure that this is the only meal that these 3 get most days. And here I am throwing away food. Our neighbours are literally starving and I am feeding our leftovers to the chickens.
How can we be so blind? We have this poverty mentality on the race. Our food budget is enough, but we act as if it isn’t. We load up on snacks using personal money as if we will starve if we don’t, we buy 2 chocolate bars instead of one as though if we don’t get it now we will never get another opportunity, we eat peanut butter like its going out of style, as if we will not get another meal with protein for weeks. In fact, if you asked most of N squad, you would find that the majority of us carry a jar in our packs. The truth is we are not starving, and our food budgets are more than enough. I am guilty of snacking and buying extra. This month I decided not to (other than the occasional Ginger Beer as a treat, can’t help it they are delish), part of the reason that I came on the race was to leave the comfortable behind, to experience life in a different way, to see how other people live around the world, and to show God’s love to the people that I encounter.
Matt 22:37-39
Jesus said to him,”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
I am not loving my neighbor well if I am living in such abundance that I am throwing food away while they are literally starving.
Matt 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
In North America we have learned that it is not okay to feel hungry, ever. And so we fill the need before we ever even have it. I would like to challenge you, as I am challenging myself, to look beyond our wants and needs, to see past ourselves and to love our neighbours in the same way that we love ourselves. Fast for a day, skip a meal, forgo that chocolate bar or afternoon snack. Lets hunger and thirst for more than just our base human needs and seek after God’s righteousness, lets love our neighbours better by making sacrifices ourselves.
That is all.
