阅读经文 

我在孟加拉国居住和工作时，记忆中有一个最令人心碎的景象，就是见到几个明显地是营养不良和饥肠辘辘的小孩，他们在垃圾中找到一本光鲜的杂志，便瞪大眼睛看着杂志里面一些美味食物的图画。其中一个小孩更把杂志举起到她的嘴前、然后舔图画上的蛋卷冰淇淋。

我们到那里是要缓解饥饿问题和对抗它的原由——贫穷——但面对这些痛苦，我感到非常无助和无力。我使用诗篇一百四十五篇的内容发出悲叹：“主啊，祢何时才给他们食物？现在岂不是适当的时候吗？”

自从在一九九零年代初期那些日子，经历饥饿和缺乏食物的人数已见减少，因为各种贫穷援助计划已经在增加了。我为此感恩，也感谢率先引领这个使命的机构。然而，那些小孩子的形像仍然萦绕我心，这是不难理解的，因为在今天，饥饿的问题又再次变得日益严重了。今天晚上，将会有超过七亿八千万人空着肚子上床睡觉的。神看重他们每一个人，我们也应该看重他们。

我必须为他们祷告，当我这样做时，我知道神已经呼召了我，去为我的祷告蒙应允得实现贡献部分力量。

One of the most heartbreaking scenes that I remember from living and working in Bangladesh was when I saw a couple of children, who were obviously malnourished and hungry, staring at pictures of delicious food in a glossy magazine they had found in the garbage. One of the children lifted the magazine to her mouth and licked a picture of an ice-cream cone.

We were there to help alleviate hunger and its cause—poverty—but I felt incredibly helpless and useless in the face of such misery. I groaned a lament based on Psalm 145: “Lord, when will you give them their food? Is now not the proper time?”

Since those days in the early 1990s, the number of people who experience hunger and food insecurity has declined as poverty alleviation programs have increased. I am grateful for that and for organizations that have led the charge. But those children still haunt me, as they should, because today hunger is again on the rise. More than 780 million people will go to bed hungry tonight. Each one matters to God. Each one must matter to us.

When I pray for them, as I must, I know that God has called me to be part of the answer to my own prayer.