We typically think of insecurities as something emotional we feel because of fear. For example, we would say that a certain person who is shy in public is insecure in themselves.
But when you talk about hunger issues on a global scaled, the term “Food insecurities” is a phrase that is often used to describe the ripple effect of people not having enough food to feed themselves or their family. So not having enough food leads to an insecure and unstable family environment, a community environment, and ultimately, a national environment. For example, before all the hurricane hit Haiti, there wasn’t enough food to go around so that insecurity led to people rioting and deposing the leader. So global hunger does effect us even in our nation because when other nations are at unrest, it is typically, though not always, over economic conditions which has hunger as a core issue. So us in the U.S. feeding the world does help to stabilize our global security.

I have another girl that rocked my world! I became a grandpa for the first time on Saturday. Cailyn Joy McNary weighed 6 lbs, 11 oz.

My New Granddaughter

 

The Girl That Rocked My World

This is Maria, the little Nicaraguan girl that rocked my world a few years ago and changed the direction of my life. You can read about the story in a previous blog, “Desperate Housewives.”

My friend, Romona Baker, of Springfield, MO, wrote this about an experience she had in Nicaragua.  

Girl with Purple Plate
Just about a year ago I was behind my video camera in a Rainbow Network children’s lunch center in Nicaragua. Children came to eat in the dim little shack made from old, weathered boards and stayed for the afternoon school run by volunteer teachers. Most of the beautiful, dark-eyed, ragged children were caught up in the excitement of our troop of visiting, white-skinned tourists with water bottles, fanny packs, silly hats and cameras. It was hard for me to capture the pathos of the hungry children distracted by the sideshow.

Then I saw her, the little girl who paid no attention to the Americans. She was only interested in the contents of her plate. The light was from behind her, layering shadows on her face as she scooped up each heaping spoonful, hardly chewing the last. I watched through the camera, as she chased the last bits of rice around her plate. My tears made it hard to see what I was filming as she raised her plate and licked off the last residue. In my mind, I still see the light shining through that purple plate and her dark eyes looking at me over its edge. When I watched the video later, I witnessed again the magical details. Her tongue curls as it sweeps the moisture left on the plate. When she finally lowers it, still looking through the camera straight into my eyes, the shiny surface reflects purple light across her face.
Even amateur photographers like me recognize those as once in a lifetime, Kodak moments. Yet for me the haunting mental image represents the hundreds of children in Nicaragua I have seen cleaning their plates of every last morsel. Even my imagination and the photos of world photographers are not sufficient to translate my experience to comprehending the hunger present in other countries.

In Springfield, Missouri, where I live, there are 11,000 children who attend the public elementary schools. In the world, there are 16,000 children who die each day because of a lack of food.

Girl Licking a Purple Plate

I used a quote in my previous post about “Trying to change the world without any demonstrable proof of our success.” While I can’t find that exact spot in the book, I’m pretty sure it was Dr. Walter Wink who wrote the original thought. I read it probably twenty years ago but it has stuck with me since because idealists, who long to see food in each person’s tummy, have to be encouraged in their work when surrounded by the reality that hunger is only worsening with this troubled global economy. I believe it is worth our efforts to struggle for the way things should be rather than to be complacent with the way things are.