Home for Christmas

Look who's coming home for Christmas!

Talk about excited! Our son Benjamin arrives tonight from Guam and our daughter Stephanie and her family will be here tomorrow from China. That means, of course, our ten-month-old grandson, too. I ought to be cleaning the house to get ready, though I realize things will be completely disorganized moments after everyone arrives. At least there would be some satisfaction in knowing that everything was in its right place at the start. But I’m just too thrilled to clean. I’d rather dance. Our family is going to be home for Christmas!

But not everyone. As excited as I am, I cannot forget our four daughters in India, as well as our daughter in Myanmar. These children ranging in age from eight to the mid-thirties are not blood family, but they are family anyhow. Let me explain.

When our son was born in 1979, we quickly fell into a common trap for many first-time parents. Nothing was too good or too much for our son. After all, he was our beautiful gift from God and we wanted to treat him as the treasure he was. Suddenly he had almost more clothes than we did and so many toys, books, and paraphernalia that they threatened to push out the walls of the little four-room house in which we lived.

I don’t remember what triggered it, but I will forever be grateful that one day we came to our senses. As happy as we were to have Benjamin, was our little boy any more valuable in God’s sight than children the world over who were starving to death for want of the very basics of life? The answer was obvious: No. Further, we realized we had a responsibility for other children in the world, not just those of blood relation to us.

That was the day Dipali became our daughter. And when Stephanie was born nearly three years later, Surekha joined our family. Both she and Dipali lived in The Shelter, an orphanage for destitute girls in Cuttack, Orissa, India. As our daughters left The Shelter for marriage and the work place, we added two others in their places—Namita, now 16, and Halima, now 13. And when Stephanie gave birth to Little Ben in January 2008, we honored him by adding another girl to our family—this one eight-year-old Myint in Myanmar. We have supported all these children through Children of Promise, a worthy child sponsorship organization that currently provides for the physical, educational, and spiritual needs of more than 3,450 children in 22 countries around the world (http://www.echildrenofpromise.org/).

Considering the brutal and violent persecution of Christians in Orissa that has escalated since August, we are particularly concerned about our family there. Namita, Halima, and their 60 “sisters” are safe within the walls of The Shelter. In fact, the orphanage has become shelter for another 50 individuals—Christians who homes have been destroyed or are in danger for their lives should they return to their rural villages in Orissa, where heinous crimes are being committed against Christians. But what about Dipali and Surekha? Adults now and with families of their own, we have not had contact with them for some time. Nevertheless, daughters they became and daughters they remain.

We are rejoicing that we can celebrate Christmas with Benjamin, Stephanie, Donald, and Little Ben. But our hearts will also reach out to India and to Myanmar, site of a devastating cyclone in May 2008 that may have claimed as many as 100,000 lives. (A true accounting will never be known.) After all, we have family in those countries, and they won’t be home for Christmas.

A Hand and a Cup

After a week of productive writing, I feel dried up today for more of the same, even though my deadline is too close for comfort. On top of that, because of all the extra hours spent at my computer, I’ve not done much grocery shopping. This means there’s little to eat in the house right now besides raw ingredients like flour and sugar—but who wants to bake? There’s also dried seaweed that someone brought back to us from Korea. (Healthy, I know, but . . . .) Searching through our cabinets, I also discover numerous packages of somen noodles received during the last summer gift-giving season. But who wants noodles that are always served cold when they’re wrapped up in an afghan and keeping their feet warm in an electric slipper? Not I.

So here I am feeling antsy, unmotivated, and generally just blah. Surely this accounts for the fact that its 3:30 p.m. and I’m still in my pajamas! I should be embarrassed, and I am. But here I sit anyway. Maybe I’ll raid the magazine basket and look for some inspiration among the hundreds of unread pages there.

My eyes fall on the cover of one magazine whose banner announces, “Hunger Isn’t History.” I see a handled tin cup turned face down on the packed earth pavement. Next to it, a wrinkled, black hand, palm down, extends from underneath a tarp. Did she die and so no longer needs her cup? The words of a stark question printed underneath nearly blind my eyes with their intensity: “The world produces more food than ever. So why do nearly a billion people still not have enough to eat?”

Do I dare read further? Wasn’t I just complaining about the food we don’t have? But I take the risk and venture inside anyway. Statistics like, “. . . worldwide, 25,000 people die each year of hunger-related illnesses” jump off the pages at me. I read it again and realize my mistake. That’s each day, not each year. At this rate, Bernie’s entire hometown would disappear—starve to death—in only sixteen hours.

Reading further, I learn of 35 nations around the world that are most affected by this severe food scarcity. Twenty-one of these are in Africa, a long ways from Japan—except for the fact that our small group members represent, among other countries, Kenya and Zimbabwe, two locations specifically mentioned. I learn that in Nairobi more than one million people are routinely hungry, while over five million of Zimbabwe’s 12 million people are expected to be starving next year.

I guess this gloomy blog characterizes my strange mood today. While I’m not sure how to lift my spirits, I appreciate that I cannot succumb to popular thinking which says, “The problem is too big for me to do anything that would matter.” Sometimes these people cluck their tongues, shake their heads about the world situation, and then bite into their Big Macs. But isn’t something—anything—better than doing nothing at all? Although I have never known hunger, do I bear no responsibility at all for the millions all around for whom hunger is their only reality of life. Surely this is what Jesus meant when he said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48, NIV).

If you’re reading this blog, I suspect that you are also one of the fortunate, really blessed people in the world, even if you have to budget carefully and occasionally—even often—have to choose not to buy something you’d really like. Just that you have access to a computer says much. So I want to challenge you today to make a positive difference in another person’s life. You may not be able to save the world from hunger, but you can do something.

Without advocating any one over another, here are some organizations that will assist you in knowing how to help the world’s starving millions: Bread for the World (bread.org), Feed the Children (feedthechildren.org), Food for the Hungry (fh.org), Food for the Poor (foodforthe poor.org), Salvation Army (salvationarmyusa.org), World Relief (wr.org), and World Vision (worldvision.org).

It was Mother Teresa who said about making an impact on the world, “Do the thing in front of you.” The woman’s hand is in front of me. I will not turn away.