Exodus From Hunger (20 page)

My years at Bread have allowed me to watch history unfold from the perspective of what’s good for poor and hungry people: “What is Congress doing, and how will that affect hungry people?” I’m convinced that’s a question that God asks. Poor people themselves don’t usually notice what’s going on in Congress. They’re busy with their own lives. They may not see when Congress makes a decision that is going to make their lives much harder. Bread for the World’s work gives you a God’s-angle-of-vision perspective on history.

This is sometimes depressing, because Congress makes many decisions with little thought to their impact among poor people. Each member of Congress is besieged with pressures to serve various interests. It’s not that anybody wants people to go hungry, but what’s good for hungry kids seldom gets much attention. On Bread for the World issues, the problem is often not opposition. The problem is getting five minutes of a senator’s time.

On the other hand, the Bread angle-of-vision has given me opportunities to see God at work. First of all, God sustains hungry and poor people. How can it be that year after year they are neglected by those of us who have power and money, and yet they are sustained? They pray to God to provide them with food, and the abundance of God’s creation allows them to get food. The sun shines on everyone, poor and rich alike. If it were up to politicians in Washington or investors in New York, maybe the sun wouldn’t shine without price. But the sun does shine on everybody, so there’s fruit for Africans and beautiful weather that even homeless people can enjoy. Joy, energy, and determination well up within people. These, too, are free gifts from God.

Beyond that, God sometimes moves the hearts of people who can change things. With some frequency, powerful people say, “Yes, I’ll do that.” It was not in the interest of Jim Leach to introduce debt relief or of Spencer Bacchus to become a champion for debt relief. Why would they do such a thing? When Leach agreed to introduce debt relief, the first thing he said was, “I’ll do this one for St. Paul. Somebody’s got to do these things now that Paul Simon is not in Congress anymore.” Senator Paul Simon, now deceased, was the brother of Bread for the World’s founder, Arthur Simon.

So God moves people in power, and, most important, God moves us. Bread for the World’s network of individuals and churches is moved to speak up for poor and hungry people, and we win a lot. I hope this book and the accompanying Web site engage many people more deeply in God’s movement to end mass hunger and poverty.

Janet and I are blessed with a loving family. We have two adopted sons, and they have changed how I think about lots of things, including hunger and poverty.

When my older son, Andrew, got in touch with his birth mother, she almost immediately joined Bread for the World. When we met her, we learned why. She was a graduate student when she became pregnant with Andrew. She did not have much money. She depended on the WIC program to help her maintain a nutritious diet. That was in the early 1980s. Bread for the World members had campaigned in the 1970s to launch and expand WIC, and they campaigned in the early 1980s to block cuts to this program.

Andrew is an exceptionally bright and creative young man. If WIC had not helped his birth mother, my son might not be as bright and creative as he is. So I am myself a beneficiary of Bread for the World’s advocacy efforts.

Andrew is gay. He came out the month he graduated from high school. Andrew’s gay rights activism has made me more aware and appreciative of the abundant diversity among people.

We always knew that Andrew’s birth father was from Iran. He was a graduate student in the United States when Andrew was conceived. Andrew has developed a relationship with his birth father, now a professor in Tehran, and with his half-cousins. The family invited him to meet them in Dubai (on the Persian Gulf). Then last year Andrew and I both vacationed with them in Turkey. So I now have a family link to people on the other side of the globe.

My second son, John, is in recovery from alcoholism and addiction. Addiction is a terrible, genetic, often fatal disease. When John was in active addiction, we eventually had to distance ourselves from him. He became poor and sometimes hungry. When he ended up homeless, there was nothing I could do to help.

Thankfully he decided to get sober and go back to a halfway house. Through Alcoholics Anonymous, John has had a spiritual awakening. He has to make his own way in the world and isn’t yet earning much money. But he is a new man—more obviously “born again” than anyone I’ve ever known. He prays on his knees morning and night, and he is active in helping other people who are recovering from addiction. I am immensely proud of John and grateful to God for guiding his steps.

John’s experience has given me an up-close view of some of the harsh aspects of poverty—boarding houses with bed bugs, for example, and employers who won’t let low-wage workers work full-time. Now that John is rebuilding his life, I feel even more urgently the importance of a full-employment economy and programs that give struggling people a chance to move forward with their lives.

John’s addiction has made me more aware of mental and physical disabilities and their role in making many people poor. Physical disabilities are obvious, but mental health problems also contribute to employment and family problems that lead to poverty and, in some cases, to homelessness and prison. Our family was able to pay for drug treatment, but many families cannot, and affordable mental health services would help. I have become a big supporter of drug courts, which provide both therapy and strict discipline for alcoholics and addicts.

As the father of an addict, I have also learned that people make their own choices and that nobody can do much to help someone who is caught up in self-destructive behavior. The addiction of a family member drives other members of the family crazy—or, alternatively, to a deeper reliance on God.

Alcoholics, addicts, and their family members learn that our lives are out of control, and the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous encourage us to ask our Higher Power—whether we talk about God or have a different understanding—to help. We examine ourselves morally, and ask the Higher Power to remove our faults. We make amends to people we have hurt, and commit ourselves to service—living one day at a time, always asking our Higher Power for guidance.

John’s fierce reliance on God has influenced me to be less confident about my own efforts and more fervent in prayer that God will help my family and all other people in their needs.

I am this year being awarded the World Food Prize in recognition of what Bread for the World’s members and churches have achieved for hungry people. I am sharing this year’s prize with Jo Luck, who has led a major expansion of what Heifer International does to develop agriculture among poor people worldwide.

The publication of this book is the next step in my life and work. At this moment of exceptional need and opportunity I plan to travel around the country and use mass media to help stir up grassroots activism to change the politics of hunger and poverty.

Y
ou wouldn’t be reading this book if you weren’t already committed. Like me, you have been drawn into the movement to overcome hunger and poverty, and you understand the importance of political change. I am praying that you will help to stir up a stronger political constituency for hungry and poor people, and that we will together bend history toward justice over the next few years.

This chapter discusses lots of ways that you can deepen your involvement and increase your impact. Political activism needs to be grounded in spirituality, service, and self-education, so this chapter offers a broad menu of ways we can deepen our engagement. It closes with specific suggestions about various ways you can change the politics of hunger now.

You may well feel that you are already overcommitted, but you can still consider shifting time and energy to higher-impact activities. And truth be told, nearly all of us could be more generous with our time and energy than we are.

We’re not going to change the world unless we get our prayers right. Whenever you pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” include hungry people in our country and around the world in your petition. Pray that God will come into your life in a new way and use you for God’s purposes in the world. When you take communion, remember that the body of Christ is broken for all people—and that this meal is a mandate to make sure that everybody has enough to eat.

Anybody who is trying to maintain faith and commitment needs devotional times alone. By nature I’m more inclined to action than prayer, but leading Bread for the World—and my personal struggles—have driven me to a daily time of prayer and to lots of mini-prayers as my days unfold.

Yet I still find my best inspiration in going to church every Sunday morning. Sitting together with Janet in a congregation of believers I listen to Bible readings and a sermon about them. We pray for our own needs and the needs of the world. We share in the bread and wine that sustain our souls. We talk with friends about our lives, what is going on in the world, and the ministries of the congregation.

Most people need other people to help them connect to God. Religious Americans are three to four times more likely to be involved in the community than nonreligious Americans. They are more apt to work on community projects, attend public meetings, vote in local elections, go to political rallies, and donate to causes. But social scientists find that these civic behaviors depend less on the specifics of what we believe than on the fact that we are part of a religious congregation and make friends there. Friends at church pray for us, encourage us, and ask us to do things for the community.
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Lots of people say they are spiritual but not religious. But we need a religious congregation or some other moral community to help us be truly spiritual.

You can be a leader on social issues within your congregation. You can promote the social ministries of your church. You can organize Christian education programs or help plan worship services. Hungry and poor people are close to the heart of God, so they should be prominent in the prayers, hymns, and sermons of every church. You can help your church make itself a welcoming place for diverse people, including low-income people.

Your church body and related organizations almost certainly offer materials and programs to encourage you and your congregation to help hungry and poor people. If you are part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, for example, check out your denomination’s hunger program, its Washington office, Lutheran Services in America, and Lutheran World Relief. If you are part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), you too have a strong hunger program, and Presbyterian Women is a great resource. If you are Catholic, you can draw great resources from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, the Catholic Health Association, and NETWORK. There’s a strong trend in U.S. religion toward independent congregations, but resources from national church bodies and agencies will help people in your church think bigger than their own lives and community.

Our work for social change should include direct assistance to people in need. How can we be committed to overcoming hunger and poverty without being involved with hungry and poor individuals? Our efforts for social change will be better motivated and informed if they are grounded in experience with particular individuals and communities.

For starters we need to take care of ourselves and those close to us. Nearly all of us go through times in our lives when we need to focus on our own needs or the needs of family members. There is also need all around us. An elderly woman in my neighborhood needs a little help to keep her life going and is short of cash.

You can also get involved in one of your church’s community ministries or support a community agency. Look especially for community programs that help needy people become self-reliant (such as teaching English to immigrants) or that empower poor people (a local housing coalition, for example).

Community agencies such as Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army provide desperately needed help on a large scale. It’s also important to support international charities such as Church World Service, Catholic Relief Services, or the International Rescue Committee.

The traditional tithe—giving 10 percent of your income to church and charities—is a helpful standard. On average, church members in the United States give away only 2.58 percent of their income.
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If church members would double their current giving to 5 percent, that would amount to about $60 billion more each year. That in itself would go a long way toward overcoming hunger and poverty.

Arthur Simon, the founder of Bread for the World, often says that action against hunger walks on two legs: assistance and advocacy. So if you tutor a low-income child once a week, write a letter to your member of Congress about some hunger or poverty issue every other week. If you write a check to an international charity, write a letter to Congress about a global poverty issue that same day.

People often ask me what charities I consider most effective. In my experience, most established charities use the donations they receive effectively. Bread for the World gets high marks from charity evaluation Web sites (such as Charity Navigator), and they can help you check for problems at a charity you don’t know well. But the best way to assess a charity is to become familiar with it. Over time you learn from a charity you support about how they work and what they achieve. Effective donors give to a limited number of organizations and stick with them over time. You can also check out the list of board members. Are they people you trust? The board members of charities related to church bodies will be church leaders, and any church body must maintain the trust of its people.