It's Not Okay AND It's Personal

I read this statistic from the UN in the paper this morning and I can't get over it:

Drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 in the last 90 days in southern Somalia alone.

This famine is real, friends.

This report is from Food for the Hungry:

• 3.5 million Kenyans are without a stable supply of food
• 4.5 million Ethiopians and 3.2 million Somalians require humanitarian assistance.
• Drought is increasing child malnutrition and school drop-out rates.

I have been sharing with my kids a little bit about what is going on in East Africa. They haven't seen one picture and they don't know the statistics or just how bad this famine is, but their first reactions are to give. Sitota especially keeps finding dollars hidden in her various coin purses and hidden places and giving them to me to donate. I think she has given every bit of money she has. I am humbled by her generosity. Evelea and Therese can't wait for our next Feed My Starving Children packing session on Monday.

To my kids, this famine is real. 3/4 of my kids have been to Africa, or have lived there. It is not just happening far away. They can imagine it, they can relate to it. They wonder if our sponsored child in Ethiopia is okay. When Therese saw a picture of a little boy who was suffering the effects of starvation, she said, "oh, that looks like Luc when he first came to Mama Ruth" (her orphanage director).

As grown-ups, we can be jaded about the world's problems, shrugging them off as the fault of poor government systems and corruption. While there is truth to that, it does not excuse us from not helping. Maybe you cannot personally relate to this current crisis or have become numb to the many tragedies befalling our world this past year. I urge you to not become complacent.

Find a way to make it personal.