Rodney Olsen recently returned from a Compassion International trip to the Dominican Republic, and has a post about breaking the cycle of poverty. Rodney’s group was supposed to go to Haiti, but food riots there forced them back to Miami, where they regrouped to head to the Dominican Republic.
This morning I read on BoingBoing that, according to this NY Times article, the poorest of the poor in Haiti can no longer afford basic food staples, and are staving off hunger pangs by eating a mixture of mud, sugar, and oil:
In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute.
“It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. “It makes your stomach quiet down.” link
Sponsor a child through Compassion (search for Haiti in the country field)
More information about people resorting to geophagy (eating dirt) in Haiti
How could we not be outraged by such affronts to human dignity? When do we stop for a minute in our comfortable lives and refuse to ignore such suffering any longer? The NY Times article points out that hungry people tend to overthrow their governments, and food riots are increasingly common in a world of rapidly rising food prices.
But riots by those affected by these crises will not solve them. Allow me to quote from a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the Vietnam War in 1967:
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another (Yes), for love is God. (Yes) And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. . . . If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
…
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. link (emphasis added)
Indeed. So here is my challenge to my readers and fellow bloggers: As of today, there are 67 Haitian children in need of sponsorship on Compassion’s website. I think we can get that number down to zero within a week. It’s $32 a month, which is less than we spent on food and coffee at Zoka last time we went. Go to the Compassion child search page, and select Haiti from the dropdown menu, then pick a child to sponsor.
Then, blog about this and ask people to help. Thanks.
Thank you for your brilliant post.
The saddest thing about leaving Haiti in the dangerous circumstances in which we did is that millions of people didn’t have the opportunity to step on a plane to fly out of that desperate situation.
Even though we were only able to stay in Haiti for 48 hours I could tell you story after story of the work that Compassion is doing and the real difference that it is making.
The government seems to have no plan to make things better but Compassion is in there, in difficult and often dangerous circumstances, making a huge difference to so many lives. They reach not just the sponsored child but their family and their community.
I urge everyone to take up the challenge of sponsoring a child today. I can assure you that the money does get there and it makes a major difference.
Wow, this is a good call to action.
The energy crisis will only compound this as oil becomes more scarce and biofuels are looked to as an alternative. There were riots in Mexico City this last year because tortilla prices doubled from the demand ethanol was placing on the market. Ethanol was in high demand because our executive branch announced that our country needs to end its addiction to oil by finding an alternative energy source (starting with ethanol), not by changing our destructive way of life.