August 15th 2013
I am blessed to have lots of loving family, friends and colleagues who care about my health. They are all interested in this campaign and how I am faring on $1 a day. In fact, more accurately, they are all quite concerned that I might be risking my health by eating on a dollar a day for 30 days (with 4 feast days spread throughout). Nutritionally, it is a close call, but I am healthy and this will be over in a couple of weeks. So, unlike those actually living in poverty, I am going to be fine - a little bit skinnier perhaps, but I can make it up when I am done with this fast. The poor cannot - their health is impacted. Some of my friends and family have asked - "well if we bought it for you, it would not cost you anything so you could eat it right?" Not really - that would be cheating, I think. But their suggestion, combined with their concern for my health, did give me an idea - What if each one of us decided to be concerned about the nutritional well-being of just one person living in poverty in the world and made it our business to provide enough food for the both of us - "each one takes one". I am a United Methodist pastor and there are over 7 million United Methodists in the United States. Some of those United Methodist members are probably living in poverty, but even if we took two-thirds of that number, it would be 4.6 million people - what if 4.6 million United Methodists in this country made it their business to make sure that one other person in the world living in poverty had enough to eat for their lifetime - that would change 4.6 million lives! And then if you spread that to all the members of the other Christian churches in the United States and then to other religions, whose members also care about the dignity and God-breathed sacredness of every life, and even if only 2/3rds of that number were wealthy enough to support the nutritional needs of one other person - we would make a huge dent in changing the world. That is the idea of Together in Hope - we all have a part to do and if we all just do our part - we don't have to do it all, we can impact the well-being of the whole. Together, we could change the world - it is certainly something to think about.
I am blessed to have lots of loving family, friends and colleagues who care about my health. They are all interested in this campaign and how I am faring on $1 a day. In fact, more accurately, they are all quite concerned that I might be risking my health by eating on a dollar a day for 30 days (with 4 feast days spread throughout). Nutritionally, it is a close call, but I am healthy and this will be over in a couple of weeks. So, unlike those actually living in poverty, I am going to be fine - a little bit skinnier perhaps, but I can make it up when I am done with this fast. The poor cannot - their health is impacted. Some of my friends and family have asked - "well if we bought it for you, it would not cost you anything so you could eat it right?" Not really - that would be cheating, I think. But their suggestion, combined with their concern for my health, did give me an idea - What if each one of us decided to be concerned about the nutritional well-being of just one person living in poverty in the world and made it our business to provide enough food for the both of us - "each one takes one". I am a United Methodist pastor and there are over 7 million United Methodists in the United States. Some of those United Methodist members are probably living in poverty, but even if we took two-thirds of that number, it would be 4.6 million people - what if 4.6 million United Methodists in this country made it their business to make sure that one other person in the world living in poverty had enough to eat for their lifetime - that would change 4.6 million lives! And then if you spread that to all the members of the other Christian churches in the United States and then to other religions, whose members also care about the dignity and God-breathed sacredness of every life, and even if only 2/3rds of that number were wealthy enough to support the nutritional needs of one other person - we would make a huge dent in changing the world. That is the idea of Together in Hope - we all have a part to do and if we all just do our part - we don't have to do it all, we can impact the well-being of the whole. Together, we could change the world - it is certainly something to think about.
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