Growing up it is likely each of us were told at the supper table, eat your food, don’t play with it. Eat. I don’t care if you don’t like Brussel sprouts, they are good for you, eat. Your father worked hard to make money to feed you kids, Now eat. As for myself and my siblings, the traditional admonishment when we didn’t eat was, “There are kids over there in Ethiopia who are going hungry… I bet they would eat it… now eat.”

I am not sure at what point in my life I came to understand that kids were starving in some foreign lands, but I still could not understand why me not eating brussels sprouts was starving those kids.

At one point I was looking through National Geographic and there it was on the page in full color, starving kids in Ethiopia. My mom was right; there were kids in Ethiopia starving. They were skin and bones. Skin on their face was drawn away from their mouths, revealing their teeth. On a couple kids, flies were on their faces. All that time I thought my mom was just making it up, but she was right and I now know she had not seen the Ethiopian kids’ pictures in the geographic magazine.

Do you remember back in school each year when they would have drives to collect funds for UNICEF? After seeing the picture, I figured if I put my lunch quarter in the collection can, I would have done my duty to help that poor kid in the picture. I wonder… Did my 25¢ really go to some starving kid in Ethiopia?

I have been very fortunate in my life, I don’t think I have gone to bed hungry. Supper was always on the table. Reflecting on how kids in other parts of the world were on my radar was because of my moms’ statements.

As a kid, I would have never thought about kids going hungry, in Ethiopia or here at home. But over the years I have seen pictures that were taken here in West Virginia of kids who were hungry. I have heard court cases of neglect and abuse where kids were going hungry. My mom was telling us of kids over there, when food was in short supply just down the road

I never realized in school that it was likely there were kids on my bus, and sitting in my classrooms that were thin because they didn’t have nourishing food. I just thought they were skinny kids.

Unfortunately, today kids in our community have homes where food may be in short supply by the end of each month. SNAP and food programs are safety nets for families that have financial difficulties. Both parents may work, but with the cost-of-living skyrocketing, paying utilities, insurance, gas, medicine, and keeping food on the table is becoming increasingly harder. Wages don’t always go far enough. Food pantries that once supplied a handful of people are now struggling to keep up with the growing need from our local citizens.

With our caring leadership in Washington DC reducing social programs that help feed children, and using our money to buy weapons to destroy countries overseas, I wonder, have we become lost in our humanity towards helping others.

The images I see now from over there are of bodies of children who were starving, before a bomb killed them. I am guessing they decided eliminating them over there is better than feeding them.

“A whole civilization WILL DIE TONIGHT!” Those harsh words have replaced, “Lets help the needy, it is the christian thing to do.”

The government tells us that this current war has cost America 29 billion dollars. Independent expert economists estimate the real number ranges between 200 billion to nearly a trillion dollars. Why is that important? When I go to the grocery store and look into the glass door of the freezer section, I see the face of that Ethiopian kid starving and afraid.

I may not be hungry, or starving. Flies may not be landing on my face. But the reality of the runaway cost of food has for the first time in my life become a reality when shopping for groceries. If food cost is part of my life, what about in some far away village in Africa? Is there a kid starving because of a lack of money to help those worse off than me? I wonder.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters, you did for me”, Jesus. Was he speaking to the kids in Ethiopia, or the kids who may be hungry right here in Wetzel County?

You can be reassured that with the recent passage of the levy that no school age kids in our county will go hungry. And just maybe a kid in Ethiopia who has food on his table tonight and hesitated to eat it, maybe his mom will tell them, eat your brussels sprouts, there may be a kid in West Virginia who will go hungry tonight. That is how I see our world Through the Lens.