There are starving children in Africa.

Dear Aunt Alice,

I wish that I could tell you that children no longer starve to death here because malnutrition is a thing of the past. I wish could tell you that I hadn’t seen the ward full of children literally dying because they haven’t had enough of the right foods to eat.

The thing is, I can’t. I have to tell you that I’ve seen dying children. Children whose parents sleep underneath their hospital beds, hoping and praying that the medical staff will be able to save just one more life, that medicine will be enough this time. Children who would never be in this situation had they been born in another part of the world.

I can’t shake the words of Christ in Matthew 25:42, “For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did no welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” As a follower of Jesus, I can’t ignore this direct command or I’m living in disobedience.

One of the nurses here is taking on “The Malnutrition Project,” a project aimed to travel to the remote villages in hopes of teaching families what they can do to properly nourish their children and provide seeds in order to help them along the way. In a couple of weeks, I hope to go with her. I want to be part of a solution, to help in whatever small way that I can, and I want to be able to tell others how they can be involved as well.

I sit here writing, tears streaming down my face, remorsefully remembering careless scraps of food that I’ve wasted, pondering what my next step needs to be. Starving children in Africa are real to me now. I can’t live the rest of my life in ignorance. Obedience to God’s Word and the commands of Christ require a change in my actions and attitudes.

I pray that others won’t be able to live in ignorance anymore either.