A Disease of the Soul
Posted on 29. Sep, 2009 by Lutheran World Relief in Uncategorized
That’s what Wall Street Journal correspondent and author Roger Thurow saw when he looked into the eyes of starving people throughout his career reporting on issues of global hunger.
Last week, as he stood before an audience of LWR staff, board members, and guests, it was apparent that Thurow, co-author of Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty, has been deeply affected by this disease of the soul.
He has spent years reporting on global hunger, looking into the hollowed eyes of mothers and children dying from lack of food, and, most significantly, seeing with his own eyes how preventable those deaths are. As he and fellow Journal correspondent Scott Kilman prepared to write Enough, Thurow remembers remarking, “Our souls will not rest until we write this book.”
And his soul is still not at rest, which is why he visited the Lutheran Center, on the opening day of our board meeting, to share his experiences.
Thurow says he has always associated Lutherans with food. Raised in Illinois, Thurow grew up attending Immanuel Lutheran Church in Crystal Lake where he attended his fair share of potluck dinners. Having traveled the world for many years, Illinois remained his home base—he and his family are members at Faith Lutheran in Lake Forest—his memories of those dinners still elicit a feeling of home and comfort.
But it is not that way for everyone. In his travels, Thurow saw that in the world’s poorest countries, especially in Africa, people were starving to death every day. Even worse, from what he learned through his reporting, he saw it didn’t have to be that way. As he describes it, global hunger is not only a man-made disaster; it is “a crime of neglect.”
According to Thurow, the goal of Enough is to “outrage and inspire” readers. Outrage because although the crash of a jumbo jet will be splashed across the pages of major newspapers, you will not see the faces of those who die of starvation—even though the number of people who die every day of starvation is equivalent to 60 jumbo jets crashing. Outrage, because there is enough food grown to feed every single person in the world, yet so many millions go hungry.
And he hopes to inspire us, as people of faith, to action. Because there is something that each and every one of us can do to play a part in ending the scourge of chronic hunger. Thurow put it best when he said, “Churches and faith-based organizations can seize this opportunity and drive this momentum.”
My soul was stirred as I thought about the timeliness of Thurow’s message as LWR works to bring relief to the people of East Africa, who are suffering through a crippling drought. The rains have not come for a long time for the people of Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, and Uganda. Food is not growing. Stomachs are going empty.
In Roger Thurow’s mind, Lutherans will always be inextricably tied to food and fellowship—with the loving hands and hearts that served him hot, nourishing food. I pray that your hearts will be moved to extend that same Lutheran compassion and love to the people of East Africa.
What Thurow says is true—nobody has to die of hunger. With your help, we can see that many fewer people do.
Lutheran World Relief is a nonprofit organization that works with Lutherans and partners around the world to end poverty, injustice, and human suffering.
