Compassionate about the poor
Bill Mulcahy (Brisbane)
Bill's
previous articles
March 30, 2012 For Every 100 – Where do you sit? www.spiritofthebush.net
Every single day we are blessed to live in a country (in my case Australia) where most people have access to three meals a day. This is not the case for the majority of the world’s people though. Just because we don’t see these people doesn’t make it right, we cannot claim ignorance, as we know that this is the case around the world. The statistics are there, yes figures can be manipulated to present a view either way, but the general consensus is that the majority doesn’t.
Many are lucky to receive a cup of rice per day. How would you and I be on a cup rice per day? So how can I explain and illustrate this to a group of people? I came across this video
The Miniature Earth that illustrates clearly what the Earth would look like if it had only 100 people as its population. It can get rather clouded with figures when we keep using large figures because we don’t really understand what a billion people would look like in relation to overall figures. But it is better to understand when numbers are in a sense more ‘real’. So let’s stick with a 100.So, I want you to visualise that you are in a room with 99 friends and you are going to have a meal, according to the world ‘s proportional standard of living. A tiny few (15) belong to first world countries like Australia and will enjoy a full-course meal seated at a table. Some more (25) are from second world countries, mainly Eastern Europe countries will have chairs but not necessarily a table and will eat small amounts of rice, beans and bread. The remaining 60 of your friends belong to third world countries and will share some water and rice. Each of the meals look different, but each group are thankful for what they have.
When you hear that 928 million people are hungry each day in the world, think back to your visualisation when 60 of your friends were hungry and thank the good Lord for blessing you for being born in a first world country and seek His assistance as to how you can best help these 928 million the most practical way as you can.