Buying Hope

I listen to Radio 4 in the mornings as I pack my kids lunches and get breakfast. I always try to tune in to their "Thought for the Day" because it is a great source of inspiration and alternates between representatives from all different faiths (rabbis to islamic ministers to priests to agnostics). I was particularly annoyed by a speaker last week however who spent the precious minutes he had berating the Western world for demanding rocket lettuce year round and saying that obsession with food here was taking food from developing countries. When ever anyone tries to make me feel guilty it puts me in defensive mode and when they offer not suggestions but only shame it infuriates me. I remember as a very young university student I was representing Bread for the World and standing in front of my state's congressman in his office in Washington DC. His belligerent reply to my attempts at shaming him about world poverty was "What do you want me to do--send them my cheese curls from lunch?". He was a miserable man but he had a point. What did I want him to do? He was one bureaucrat buried in a sea of ineffective legislation. What are we to do?

I do know what we should not do. We should not feel shame for being born in the west nor feel guilty that we have food to feed our children. That is a good place to start. The Bible however does tell us that it is hard for a rich man to enter heaven maybe because it easy for a rich man to avoid seeing the need outside his gates and maybe because we have more to give up and that is hard. The bottom line seems to be the problem looks so big and complicated with corrupt governments, natural disasters and lack of opportunity.

I believe I have found part of my answer on " What to do" and it came from a nurse that I work with at my local hospital. She comes from Nigeria and has been working on my ward about 2 years. She held a clothing drive last year as British Airways had offered free shipping for a few containers to be flown back to Nigeria to her father who runs an orphanage for 12 or so street children who have no home. She works here in order to send her pay back home to support her father and the orphanage in Africa. She works almost everyday-as many hours overtime as she can. She works here providing good nursing care for NHS patients despite the fact that her children (the youngest was 11 when she left) live with a friend in Nigeria while she is away. She sees them once a year.

It occurs to me that is what I can offer as an individual living in the west. I have the opportunity to work and have an income. That is a blessing and one I can share. My giving will not solve world hunger but it just may make a difference to one or two people who get a fresh water well or tent from Oxfam or a goat from Cafod. I can take some of what I have an give to the poor. They need my family to be able share what we have and it is possible to do. We try to give little by little each month sometimes from our excess, sometimes from our need. It isn't much. It may be only 5% of what we earn each year but we hope it can make a difference. My daughter is 16 and questions that the money we send will get where it is needed. That is a valid point and the answer is no I can not guarantee that it will not be misused by those charities we entrust it to or be stolen by the corrupt governments that lie between our countries. But if some gets through to help even one family than I consider it worthwhile because the alternative is to give nothing and then there isn't even hope.