World Hunger & Call

Among the bills in my mail on Monday afternoon came an envelope with big red print on the outside: “Emergency! Food Crisis in Brazil: 800 helpless children facing death by starvation.” I confess here and now that I usually just toss these letters unopened in the recycling box. Almost every mail delivery brings me a new plea for assistance from somebody somewhere. 

I am certain that hunger is a serious issue for children in Brazil as well as children in Uganda, India, and – well – in all to many places all over this world. Its also a serious issue for teens, adults, and the elderly and its been an issue for what seems to be as long as we can remember, including as long as we’ve been writing our memory down. It was famine that moved the great grandchildren of Abraham off of their land and into debt slavery in Egypt, the slavery that required Moses’ to persistently confront the pharaoh in order to set the people free.  And it is the act of receiving food from God that marks their journey across the desert as being holy, of their remaining under God’s good care.