I heard on the radio that the world is headed for another drought.  Regardless of how you feel about global warming, the FACT is - its going to get pretty hot and dry in quite a few spots in the upcoming year.  "Hot and dry" translates into the lack of food, which translates into severe hunger and starvation in too many places.

The commentator also mentioned that nations and non-profits will be again lining up to try to help feed people.  I'm so pleased to know our denomination (United Methodist Church) will be at the forefront of this effort. Its one reason I came back to the UMC after being elsewhere on my faith journey.

Some might question the value of helping those starving people over there in __________.  Others might be suspicious of motives or methodology.  Many are able to just set the issue aside.  Others may say we have hungry people right here in ________, which is true, and we SHOULD be helping them.  The world has enough food to feed everyone everywhere. Yet, it never ceases to amaze me how people come up with reasons/excuses not to do it.  Thank God for those who step up the plate (pun intended).

Things get done in this world through partnership.  And it is no different when it comes to feeding the hungry. Here in Minnesota, dozens of companies donate money to pay for food staples that are voluntarily packaged and boxed up by thousands of men, women, youth and children through a non-profit named Feed My Starving Children.  These boxes are shipped by hundreds of distributors to many countries. One example is the UMC, which ships containers to a dock in West Africa twice a year, among other places.

After the ships arrive, a non-profit, based in Sierra Leone, trucks the food up to a French-supported hospital and feeding center.  Norwegian-financed vans are used to pick up emaciated children and their mothers in nearby villages.  They stay at the center for a month.  The mothers are trained in nutrition by staff from the United Nations Food Programme.  Because of their condition, the children eat the FMSC food for the first two weeks.  Then the children "graduate" to rice, grown and brought to the hospital by local farmers through a business co-operative initiated by Save the Children.  Mothers and (healthy) children return to their village where a worker supported by Catholic Charities monitors their development.  Every four weeks the pattern repeats itself.    

Businesses, nations, denominations, the U.N. and other non-profits working together to solve a problem and  make this world a better place.  It takes a village to feed a child.