We’ve all seen the pictures of the African child with distended belly and the plea for money. Maybe we responded, maybe we figured that the money would go anywhere but to that child. But in any event we probably got ‘used to’ seeing it. The shock value wore off. The shocking idea of starvation wore off.

We probably need to be more concerned now.

According to the Guardian, an English newspaper, nearly one billion people worldwide are starving. Each day, 40 million more join their ranks. That’s close to 15 percent of the world going hungry in 2008. That’s serious world hunger.

To quote the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s Assistant Director General, “For millions of people in developing countries, eating the minimum amount of food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream….”

2009 promises to be worse. Very, very much worse.
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