Following The Call » Our lives as we join the mission field in Tanzania

Every now and then I read something on Africa that kinda makes me say WHAT??   For real Africa?  And I wanted to share one of those time with you.  There is a missionary that is also serving with GMI in Zambia. I was reading over their latest blog post and it kind stuck me as interesting. In the blog post title ‘Vacation of Extremes,’ The Moore’s are talking about a recent vacation they went on and traveled by train to get to their destination. Read what they say about the ‘trash disposal’ on the train, and take special note of the sentence I put in bold.-

A strange event was the disposing of trash. Everyone just throws the trash out the window of the moving train. There are two reasons for this. One is that everything you throw out the window will be used by people in the villages. The other reason is when the workers clean your cabin, they throw all the trash out the window. In fact, we watched in amazement as the man came and took our trays for us after we ate, and promptly went to the open window across the aisle and scraped the remainders of our meals out the window.

I think most people in America (at least I am) are very wasteful. We always have left overs at my house, and most often those left over get shoved into the back of the fridge where I forget about them and they end up getting thrown away. We are fortunate that we do not need to eat other peoples left overs to survive.  Now think about how much food your throw away in a month. Food you don’t finish at a resturant, food that goes rotten in the fridge, food you just don’t feel like eating. Now think about how much that food costs. Maybe $10 total??  $30? $50??  At least the food that gets thrown out the train window gets eaten, unlike our food that just becomes trash.

Africa is a continent where about 36% of the population lives on LESS than $1 a day. $1 to eat, buy clothes, medicine, everything. $1.

When Matt and I were in Ethiopia we experienced something hard to watch that was rather eye opening. We had traveled out of the city into the country to go to a beautiful Montessori and to see some of the country side. We were in a very poor area that was full of poverty like we had not yet witnessed. Our host had brought along a traditional Ethiopian meal for us to eat at lunch. We stopped at a ‘hall of sorts that had tables for us to sit at and eat, and there were a few other EThiopians in the room talkeing and kinda hanging out. As I looked at the lunch of random meat/veggies/eggs and who knows what else was in that bowl… I decided that I was not hungry after all.  Matt took a plate full of the food and took a big bite out of a suspicous looking egg and I see him almost as quickly as the egg went in.. take the egg out of his mouth. At that point he became suprisingly full as well  We finished up our lunch and our host scrapped all the un-finished food off the plates back into the bowl. (Includes Matt’s half eaten egg.)  He sat back down and said to us.’ We are in an uncomfortable position now. We have this left over food. If we walk out of here with it, we will have to go past all the beggars who have no food  and they will see that we have more than we needed. If we start to give out the food, we are putting our selves in danger as we do not have enough for everyone and it may start a riot. I do not know what we should do.’

We sat and thought about it and then decided it would be best if we gave the food to the man who was in charge of the building, and he could hand it out and it would be safe for him to do so, and we could also safely leave as he was handing out the food. So..  all the food was dumped into a plastic bag and given to the man in charge. He started handing it out, and people started running out of the building and telling others ‘There’s food!! They are giving out food!!’  So the man went around giving out the food to the beggars and  children and whoever happened to make it into the building fast enough. At this point I am in tears looking at these beautiful people dressed in rags running to eat  our left over food.  As we are leaving through the tears streaming down my face I see an old man, who looks tired and worn eating Matt’s egg.  The very egg that my husband spit out because it wasn’t good enough. The egg that I wasn’t even willing to try.

I know it’s hard to imagine  if you have never witnessed it in person, but the need is great. There are people out there who literally have no food. They will eat anything. They will do anything for food.  What would you be willing to do to feed your children?  We are fortunate to  live in America. A place where if you do not have food for your family there are many options for you. Food banks and soup kitchens are plentiful.  We have so much, so I think we have even more responsibility to give to those who have so little. There are around 100 verses in the bible  dealing without our responsibility to  serve the poor and provide for there needs. How many more times do we need to be told to do something about it?  Is 100 not enough?

There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11