In my ongoing personal effort to not just blow by the Day of Prayer and Fasting for the millions affected by global food crisis and get on with life, I have committed to doing a few things that maybe some of you would like to try too!

• First of all, I have been trying to remember to pray at each meal for those who are hungry. I thank God for what He has provided for me, and then I acknowledge that there are many who will not eat a meal today, or will not eat enough to fill them. I ask God to tenderly care for them in whatever way He chooses to do that –- even if that means leading me to do something for one or more of them (like specifically my sponsored children –- perhaps sending them a monetary family gift to help with their expenses).
• Secondly, I have been trying to get rid of phrases from my vocabulary that are just not true. For example, I came home from work yesterday, and I was hungry. I had eaten a bagel with peanut butter for lunch, but it truly didn’t stick with me, and by 6:30 PM I was ready for dinner. I even had a headache. I walked into the house and started to say to my husband, “I’m starving!” This is a typical thing that I say every time I am really hungry. But it’s just not true –- obviously, not even close to being true. And it shows my disrespect or lack of appreciation of what it means to starve, truly starve.
• Another phrase I am trying to get rid of is “There is nothing to eat in this house!” I think we all say that when we don’t like or don’t feel like eating what is in our refrigerators, cupboards, and canisters. Other than when I have moved into a new place and haven’t yet unpacked the moving boxes, I don’t think I have even had a moment in any house I have lived in where there is truly nothing at all to eat. When I look in the cupboards and feel tempted to complain, I am trying to instead utter a quick word of thanksgiving for what God has graciously provided for me.
• Finally, I am trying to gather together with others on a regular basis to pray for those who are hungry, and to help keep the awareness of this issue in front of my neighbors and friends. It is easy for all of us to get on with our lives and forget this silent tsunami. I want to help keep it in the forefront of people’s minds and hearts so they can be open to acting as God leads them.

On the Day of Fasting and Prayer for the Global Food Crisis, I ended my day with a gathering at my house after work. I had announced an open invitation the previous Sunday at my church, inviting anyone who wanted to come. I emailed friends, co-workers, and neighbors about it. Thirteen people showed up.

We prayed from 6:00 to 7:00 PM, and then we broke our 24-hour fast with a simple meal of rice and beans, water and unsweetened iced tea. No dessert, no fancy beverages. No veggies or meat in the rice. We had seasoned salt and a can of Creole seasoning though, and most of us used a lot of that!

The evening was a powerful time of prayer and a wonderful time of community. It had the feel of doing something important, something meaningful. Even though it was really very, very simple.

One lady brought her two sons, ages 5 and 7. She had prepared them for the day through a great learning experience that I am sure they will long remember. (more…)

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My name is Lisa Miles, and I have been a sponsor with Compassion for two years. My husband and I sponsor a 9-year-old boy in Ethiopia, and we have a correspondence child who is 17, also from Ethiopia.

I am not a Compassion exec or even a Compassion advocate (yet!), I was never a sponsored child myself nor am I a fabulous Christian recording artist. My perspective is simply that of a sponsor with a passion for Compassion — and someone who deeply loves her sponsored kids. I have to confess that the day of fasting and prayer on behalf of the global food crisis did not impact me. At all.

I fasted — I felt some minor discomfort — but speaking as a mother, one day without food is like a drop in the bucket of sacrifices I’ve made since my child was born. You mothers understand.

We have sacrificed our sleep, our free time, our career goals, our figures, our freedom to watch anything on television that isn’t animated. One day without food — not a problem. To be a mom is to sacrifice for others.

Now I’ll tell you what would impact me — and again I’ll speak as a mother.

Ask me to wake my child in the morning and tell her she will have nothing to eat today. Ask me to put her to bed at night crying because she is so hungry. When she looks at me with complete love and trust — knowing that she depends on me for everything — ask me to tell her there will be nothing to eat tomorrow either. Now ask me to repeat this daily until her ribs protrude, her tummy bloats, and she can hardly walk.

As a mom, I want to give my child everything — the best of everything. Now tell me that I can give her nothing — not even the food she needs to keep her alive.

In a heartbeat, what was once a token activity would take on an awful significance.

Sixteen thousand children die of hunger-related causes each day. Each day — 16,000!

Even as I write this, I feel the need to go back and double check that figure, because I think surely it must be wrong. It is not.

The majority of these deaths are not attributable to outright starvation, but to diseases that move in on children whose bodies have been weakened by hunger. (1) I weep for these children — but I weep doubly for their mothers. I cannot imagine their pain.

How easy it is for the rest of us. We don’t have to live that reality. We don’t even have to watch it happen. In fact, we can lead our daily lives pretending that it doesn’t happen. And I think that would be not just sad but heartlessly cruel. These mothers need our help, and if we can offer it, we should.

So I’m asking you moms today to dig deep and do what you can. Give generously and often to the Global Food Crisis Fund. In fact, give something now. Sponsor a child — or an additional child — in a country where poverty is real and deadly.

I have to add that I won’t feel bad if there aren’t a lot of comments on my post. I know firsthand that you mothers are incredibly busy laughing, cuddling and playing with your kids — and cleaning up a mess or two, or twenty, along the way. (I cleaned an entire can of blue Play-Doh off the cat today. That was a new one.) So all I’m asking is that you give me an “amen” or two — then donate what you can.

Thank you for everything you do — and will do — to help children and their mothers. I know they would do the same for you.

P.S. My husband said “ditto for the dads.”

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Isn’t it amazing how quickly time flies? Life moves past us with lightning speed. One big event after another appears on our calendars. We watch them approach, and when they arrive we mark them off. Then we’re on to the next big thing.

Within our families, it’s stuff like weddings and birthdays and soccer tournaments. At church, it’s retreats, sermon series, small group studies, and, if you’re liturgical like my church, feast days and liturgical seasons measured in colors — we move from white to red to green.

It’s already been a week since we fasted and prayed for the millions of children and families affected by the global food crisis. I missed my chance to immediately write and thank you. I meant to — you were on my heart.

The day came and was powerful and passed. Almost instantly I was off to the next “important” thing.

Yet, the kids are still hungry. They still need our prayers and our actions. They are not on to the next thing. They are still dealing with and living this one big thing. Hunger.

Over 6500 of you committed to pray and fast with us last week. And I do want to say thank you for that! Even though my thanks are a bit late, they are heartfelt nonetheless.

I hope your day of prayer and fasting was a day in which you encountered the Lord and His tender heart for those who are suffering. I hope it was a day when you felt a bit more deeply the Lord’s love for these children.

Let’s keep doing that — feeling His love for them. Sharing His compassion with them. Not just on one day. Let’s pray regularly for them. Perhaps when we sit down to dinner to say grace. When we lie down in bed at night. When we rise to another beautiful summer day. Let’s thank the Lord for His astounding provision to us and lift up those who so desperately need a touch of His hand.

A few of Compassion’s international partners are holding days of fasting and prayer just like we did on June 25.

If you enjoy the feeling of joining together with believers across the globe to fast and pray, then you might consider praying with:

• Netherlands on July 6
• United Kingdom on July 13
• South Korea on July 24

Please continue to tell others about the global food crisis. Continue to help raise awareness. Let’s take our focus off gas prices in the U.S. and put the spotlight on the deep and growing needs the children have worldwide.

Don’t assume everyone around you already knows about this and is doing something to make a difference. Most people don’t know, and those who do know, don’t know how to help in a way that will make a tangible difference. Tell them what we’re doing.

In the month of July alone we’re sending $1.5 million to nine of our field countries to help feed children and provide emergency supplemental food for their families. We hope to do the same for the next several months, if the funds come in.

We are also working on a longer term plan that will help the children’s families and our church partners address this problem, into the future, in ways that are sustainable and developmental.

Let’s not let this moment pass in our everyday busyness. In the rush to move along to the next thing in our lives …let’s pause here. Let’s join together and make a difference.

This is important. Really important! Who is going to do it if you and I don’t?

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A co-worker of mine, Candace Perry, broadcast the following note to her Facebook friends Tuesday night. It’s striking.

A girl, probably about 12 years old, of the tomboyish type with short brown hair, is kinda hobbling along. Her left leg is in a cast of some sort. It crosses my mind that I’d seen this girl a bit earlier, walking in the same condition — looking rather lost with a super sad face. Destitute was the word that came to mind. Well, not really destitute as far as her clothes went, just the expression on her face was. As I get closer to her, she looks at me with that look you can recognize anywhere — you know, the look that says “I need help, can you help me?!” I immediately start wondering what she’s about to ask me … could it be that this poor little orphan child was abandoned by her parents and has no way to get home? Could it be that she’s starving and hungry?”

With sad, puppy dog eyes, she asks in a fast, mumblish, barely audible fashion, “Miss, do you have a second?” And I answer, all sympathetic, “Sure,” just knowing she was about to ask me if I had some cash to spare. And even though I didn’t have any on me, I’d do my good samaritan deed for the day and walk back over to the food court and buy her something with my debit card. I had almost kept walking because of that lack of cash, but the look on her face was just THAT sad that I couldn’t help but stop.

But there was no way, absolutely no way I could’ve been prepared for what she said next. With complete seriousness and the same sad face, she says, “I was in this store and they have this new DVD and I was going to buy it, but then they told me they had this other version, the special edition version, and I wanted to buy it but it was $4 more, so I was wondering if you might have $4 to spare?”
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Thank you to everyone who has made the commitment to fast and pray with us today. We’re nearly 6,000 strong.

Thank you to everyone who has helped spread the word about the day of fasting and prayer and about the global food crisis.

Thank you to everyone who has donated money to the Global Food Crisis fund.

Thank you to everyone who has shed a tear. We know your sorrow. We share it. For it is Christ’s sorrow.

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I have been fighting poverty for more than 30 years and throughout that time I have never seen the potential for devastation that I see in the current global food crisis. I know it’s difficult to imagine that something like rising food costs could be so destructive. It’s not as if hunger rumbles like an earthquake. He doesn’t announce himself like a passing wind of a cyclone. He destroys, but you never see him.

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June 25 is a day of fasting and prayer at Compassion. We’re fasting and praying for the children we sponsor, for their families and for our local staff and church partners in the developing world. We’re fasting and praying because the global food crisis is devastating many of their lives.

The price for rice, beans, corn and other food staples throughout the world has risen exponentially in recent months, creating extreme hardship and suffering for families living on $1 or $2 a day.

Imagine if you had to spend 80 percent of what you earned on groceries. Can you imagine that?

I can’t. And even though I’ve traveled to Rwanda, Kenya and China and seen extreme poverty, I still have a hard time picturing a life where I would live on $2 a day.

80 percent of my income on groceries? If I was in that boat, I’d be selling it. And if I’m in that situation, I can’t afford … I can’t afford anything.

The global food crisis is affecting everyone in some way. But how it affects me is totally different than how it affects my sponsored child, Lerionga. It’s much more intimate for him.

I’m sure you’re well aware of the record high price of gas in the U.S. and the ridiculous price tag for a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. I’m usually oblivious to grocery prices, but $4.50 for a loaf of bread that used to be $2.50 got my attention.

My loaf of bread is more than two days salary for many families.

Have you noticed this?

I’m feeling the pinch of the global food crisis, but for the billions of people in extreme poverty my pinch is a bear hug crushing the life out of them. There is no margin.

So in addition to what you’ve already done and the caring and generosity you’ve displayed already, we’re asking for more.

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