Today, I want to direct you to someone else’s blog, because she has written about an issue that needs our attention.  In the midst of facing her fear of cancer recurrence, Terri Wingham steps away from her own suffering and asks us to consider the agony of the 11.3 million people across East Africa who urgently need food and medical supplies.

Asking the question, “What If We Were the Ones Broke Down and Torn?” Terri’s post brought me to tears.  She quotes a CBC article written by Kazi Stasna, in which he quotes Austin Kennan of the Concern Aid Organization, “The stories are actually what made it so horrendous, because every single family had lost two or more children.”

Kennan goes on to say, “Often, it’s women [walking] alone with children, so they’re not even able to bury them properly; they just have to leave them and walk on, hoping that somebody else will bury them for them, which is absolutely traumatic.”

Ian Robertson for the Toronto Sun, quotes Dave Toycen, World Vision Canada president, “Our greatest concern is for the children. Reports of children so malnourished they can’t cry anymore are particularly grim.  The ability to weep is the last stage before dehydrated, malnourished people die. The sound of silence for babies is often the sound of death.”

I live in a nice house and am able to provide my children with plenty of food.  I also live in a country that, right now, can’t seem to get it together politically.  I am overloaded on words like “crisis,”  “tragedy,” and “meltdown.”  Every day I turn on the television, or read the newspaper, I feel greater and greater anxiety about our future.

In the midst of all the political news, has been the news about Somalia.  For the most part, I have done my best to ignore it.  It seems just too horrendous and too far away.  But, as Terri reminded me, we must do more than give in to our own discomfort by looking away.

Please read Terri’s post.  If you do, I guarantee you will be moved to tears and action, as I was.  With a simple text message, you can send $10 to UNICEF, United Nations World Food Program, Save the Children and other organizations working to bring food and aid to those in need. 

We have all faced suffering as cancer survivors, but if we are alive and our children are well-nourished, we have much to be grateful for.  Let’s show that gratitude by giving hope to others who are suffering so much. 

Survival > Existence,

Debbie