As the
calendar turns to November, my thoughts and heart turn to Thanksgiving. Not
just the holiday filled with family, overindulgent feasts and football, but
the season of gratitude in which I am reminded of all that God has provided.
God has been very generous with me. I am blessed. And for that, I cannot
help but be thankful.
And that thankfulness causes me
to take notice of those who have far, far less than I do. Especially those
who have very little, or almost nothing. In the Horn of Africa, including
most of Somalia, as well as parts of Kenya and Ethiopia, people are starving
to death. As severe as our drought here in Kansas is, we do not have anything
to help us comprehend the drought and resulting food shortage that Somalia is
experiencing. Coupled with an unsteady political climate, people are
succumbing to starvation literally by the tens of thousands.
According to a news article by
Dr. Bill Frist, a medical doctor and former U.S. Senator, “More than 29,000
children have died over the past three months in what is the most acute food
security emergency on Earth. It's worsening by the minute and outstripping
available supplies. Thousands never make it to the (refugee) camps, and those
that do might have to wait outside the confines where 50,000 others are
waiting.” Frist goes on to say, “Drawing from my experiences as a doctor in
refugee camps in southern Sudan and Darfur, the conditions Biden and I saw
this week constitute among the worst, the result of a cruel nexus of war,
drought and poverty.”
Such need is overwhelming. We
don’t know where to begin to help. That’s where NUMANA comes in. NUMANA
packages small, dried meal bags consisting of rice, beans, soy product and
vitamins that can be shipped and delivered directly to people in need of
food. On Saturday, November 5th, the thankful people of Dodge City
will work together to package as many as 300,000 of these meals.
If you haven’t signed up already, it’s not too late to simply make
plans to “walk in” to the civic center anytime between 9 and 3 p.m. on
Saturday. You’ll be put to work. You can make a difference. And…it’s
important to remember, the financial goal for the Dodge City Share the Bounty
NUMANA event has yet to be reached. It takes $78,000 to buy that much food
and ship it.
In short, if you feel that you
have been blessed, and that you have something to share, I want you to write a
check to NUMANA and I want you to show up at the civic center on Saturday.
It’s as simple as that. And if you do those things, then I’ll have many more
reasons to be thankful.
See you in Church!
--Lance
