As of today, 3/30/12, even as children continue to starve to death in East Africa despite the famine being downgraded to a humanitarian crisis, so West Africa now faces the prospect of an immanent famine unless the global community acts swiftly and decisively to provide enough immediate aid to prevent it. But alas it does not become BIG NEWS until the children are already starving by the hundreds and the governments of the world will not act decisively enough because at the end of the day despite what anyone says to the contrary famine is an acceptable reality on planet earth that the human family has elected to live with. The ultimate oppression that we would think was just completely unacceptable to the human family - children starving to death by the hundreds daily for lack of food, has become etched into the human psyche as part of our way of life as a species. Are we really made in the image of the Creator God, or are we just kidding ourselves and is there a more evolved species out there that actually claims this distinction? So long as we are okay with the idea that some may accumulate moderate to excessive wealth in the manner of material possessions while others starve to death for lack of the most basic, fundamental resources that Allah clearly meant for ALL humanity to share in equitably, just so long we live in the most brutal and devastating denial that could ever be imagined. If we found a child starving in the neighbor's house next door I'd like to believe that each and everyone of us would launch into immediate action to get this child the medical attention and food necessary to save her or his life; I believe almost every one of us would act swiftly and share from our own cupboards. The children a continent over, our neighbors in humanity; God's children are starving to death and we are on the brink of yet another famine!!! But we fail to act at our own peril; yes our own peril... For their eyes are surely the window not only to the heart of our loving and heavenly Mother, but as well to the gift of eternal love that God offers with such abundance. But if we fail to see God in their eyes searching and pleading for our love and for our humanity; if we fail to hear His words echoing through the centuries - "as often as you fail to do it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you fail to do it to me." - just so long eternity's beauty will remain on the other side of the window; the truth told - if we don't recognize God looking back at us from the eyes of starving children, then we won't recognize heaven if we are literally immersed in it and dripping with it... because heaven is a place where God welcomes home the starving children...

_There are young international college students among us who are in danger of losing their place in the classroom. They are already in the country working hard on educations that stand to benefit the famine ravaged communities they have come from, but now due in large part to dire economic conditions back home the best and the brightest from East Africa face the grim prospect of having to leave school. Among them is a young woman from Ethiopia who is in an accelerated degree program and maintains a 3.8 grade point average. Now in her second year of college, by the end of her third year she will already have earned a bachelors degree in physics, if she's able to continue that is. At the end of her fifth year she'll have earned a second bachelor's degree, this one in engineering. She is studying to be a hydraulic engineer and plans to return home to her people and help a land that suffers from severe water shortages.

The international students we are talking about are at the top of their class as student scholars. The young woman mentioned above has actually founded an organization that is dedicated to helping the victims of the famine back home in East Africa. The organization she has founded has chapters on three college campuses already and is looking to expand. As the Founder of the organization and the President of the chapter at her college the Alumni Newsletter has chronicled the work she is doing. She has involved both students as well as college staff and professors in the project and has even been instrumental in introducing material about the famine into the classroom at the three participating colleges. At the ripe old age of nineteen she is the driving force behind the organization's work and mission.

The young woman we have mentioned is indicative of the students we are talking about, they are bright, young leaders who are dedicated to making their world a better place to live, they are truly tomorrow's hope for humanity. While they have come from regions of the world that have been devastated by famine and poverty, they see themselves as citizens of the world with a responsibility to be re-builders of a new world. The young lady mentioned above has collaborated with our famine group here in the valley and has talked with junior high and high school students about the famine and what young people in America can do to make a difference. We are gravely concerned about her and the other international students whose families have seen their economies back home literally come to a stand-still, at first because of the deterioration of the world's economies and now due to the famine. Most of the students have come from the equivalent of our middle class, and now when their people will need fresh new leadership like never before, their futures dim.

We of People Fighting Famine organized just this past October in an effort to raise awareness about the famine in East Africa and to tell the story of the people whose lives were and still are being shattered by it. Now we have discovered that the educations of the brightest young minds who are most apt to help their people re-build are in peril. Our young friend from Ethiopia who is once again on the Dean's list, has been recognized by the Alumni Association for her outstanding leadership regarding the famine, and who doesn't know the meaning of the word quit now joins the ranks of international students who face the prospect of going back home without the education that their people so desperately need them to earn. As we search for a way to help our friend and the other students in the same predicament, we would greatly appreciate any ideas or information that you or others you may know might have to share.

We are writing out of concern for our family who live in East Africa. Most Americans know that a famine was identified in East Africa earlier this past summer. What many among us don't realize is that the famine is still going strong and is now taking the lives on average of well over two hundred children everyday. Sadly in the midst of this most horrific human disaster in more than half a century, the media has gone missing.

One child dying every six minutes, its a nightmare more devastating than we could possibly imagine. The children starving to death are mainly between the ages of a few months and five years old. They are dying right in their mother's arms; can you imagine watching helplessly as your little girl or boy starves to death? . What if it were our children starving to death, or our neighbor's children? How can it be unthinkable for a child to starve to death in America but acceptable and even commonplace for a child to starve to death in Kenya, Ethiopia or Somalia?

Is there room for anger as you wait on help that never arrives or has your heart broken into so many pieces that your pain and anguish leave no room for anything but despair? As members of the same human family who pray to the same God who is father of us all, what are our responsibilities? Absolutely we must help the hungry in our own backyard, but is there any doubt that God expects us to help all the hungry children? When we really get that God is Father of us all, then we understand that their children are indeed our children too.  


The children of our East African sisters and brothers are starving to death on our watch, starving to death in the twenty-first century. We can't stop a tsunami, or earthquake or hurricane and we haven't yet found a cure for cancer, but what does it say about us as members of humanity if we can't share our food so that little kids no longer starve to death? Our global trade long ago made the planet earth a village and the house next door is on fire and the only question left to answer is - what are we going to do about it?

How can it not haunt us? At what point do we take personal responsibility and do something about it? On the day we understand that the child starving to death on another continent half a world away is our child, that's the day we're born again. Once we do make this discovery. our lives will never be the same.

Can there be any doubt that adopting a child and welcoming them into your life is one of the most meaningful things any one of us could ever do? Once we realize that they are truly our children too, then we have indeed been born again and we'll never again look at the world in quite the same way. Once you understand that it is your own child over there starving to death, on that day you stop making excuses for why you can't help or needn't help and you start doing whatever on earth you can do to help.

Whether your son or daughter is born into your home or comes into your life via some other special circumstances, all that matters to you is that you love them with all your heart and make a sacred space for them in your life. The story of God in the world is really the story of unconditional love asking human beings to make room for all of our sisters and brothers, for all of our children.

Tonight, under the stars and among the moon-shadows, you and I are asked by the creator of the heavens and the earth to make more room in our lives for the rest of our children. Family to family; father to daughter; mother to son; the holy scriptures of the ages invite us to stretch our understanding of what it means to be family - and make ours a home that includes all of God's children.

There is a famine half a world away and our children are starving to death. Every child born of woman deserves to eat and have there fill, is there a more basic human right than this? Famines are a catastrophic human disaster that are declared by the United Nations and put a demand on all people of good will to drop what they're doing and take notice. Our children are starving to death in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, and the only question left to ask, is what are you and I going to do about it?