“My emotions could scarcely take in what I saw and heard. The three-year-old twins, lying naked and unmoved on a small cot, were in their last act of their personal drama. Mercifully, the curtain was coming down on their brief appearance. Malnutrition was the villain. The two-year-old played a silent role, his brain already vegetating from marasmus, a severe form of malnutrition.
The father is without work. Both he and Maria are anguished over their existence, but they are too proud to beg. He tries to shine shoes. Maria cannot talk about their condition. She tries but the words will not come. Her mothers love is deep and tender, and the daily deterioration of her children is more than she can bear. Tears must be the vocabulary of the anguished soul.”
- A Former president of World Vision after visiting a poor Brazilian couples home.
I don’t want to hear these stories because I don’t want to do anything. Part of me finds these stories hard to believe because it is so foreign to my lifestyle. I haven’t seen a doctor in over a year, because when I’m sick I just go to the store for medicine. When my families hungry, we can buy food whenever……even when I don’t have money. Just dip into our line of credit at our bank. When my daughter is crying because she doesn’t want to eat broccoli, I can easily shut her up by giving her anything else she wants.
Why would anyone want to hear these stories? Because if we heard these stories too often, our lifestyles just might become a little more uncomfortable. We might be stirred into action. We might forsake the things in life that we really don’t need. And that might be too much of a sacrifice to ask.
The father is without work. Both he and Maria are anguished over their existence, but they are too proud to beg. He tries to shine shoes. Maria cannot talk about their condition. She tries but the words will not come. Her mothers love is deep and tender, and the daily deterioration of her children is more than she can bear. Tears must be the vocabulary of the anguished soul.”
- A Former president of World Vision after visiting a poor Brazilian couples home.
I don’t want to hear these stories because I don’t want to do anything. Part of me finds these stories hard to believe because it is so foreign to my lifestyle. I haven’t seen a doctor in over a year, because when I’m sick I just go to the store for medicine. When my families hungry, we can buy food whenever……even when I don’t have money. Just dip into our line of credit at our bank. When my daughter is crying because she doesn’t want to eat broccoli, I can easily shut her up by giving her anything else she wants.
Why would anyone want to hear these stories? Because if we heard these stories too often, our lifestyles just might become a little more uncomfortable. We might be stirred into action. We might forsake the things in life that we really don’t need. And that might be too much of a sacrifice to ask.
