Are we doing enough to help the poor? Poverty Stats

[yeshuaslavejeff]

This is the Gospel in practice but no one likes to apply it to themselves. Surely God doesn't expect me to invite a stranger in and put my family at risk? We are all to scared to speak it out too because that means we have to practice what we preach.

I fear the judgement upon us someday when we walk past a homeless beggar on the streets and be offended by his presence while carrying a $5 cup of coffee.

A wise man loves criticism, and Ekklesia DO accept the responsibility on themselves. Religions of men on earth sometimes seem to do even better than God's People do !
Yes, God expects everyone who calls on His Name to DO what HE Says.
Those who don't, who HEAR the WORD, but are not doers of the WORD are not justified (Romans 2).
Failing to DO His WORD and falling under His judgment is a fearful thing !

It is even worse for those who think they are doing well, who think they have it made in the shade, humanly speaking,
and refuse to HEAR God's Voice , and find out on judgment day they didn't make it.

 

[Halbhh]

As someone who is suffering in poverty I can guarantee that not enough is being done to help the poor.

It's good to know that church members are donating to local food pantries exactly in order that people who need help with enough money to live, and that normally will include food, can get help from the food pantry. For instance, after paying rent, and unexpected expenses and such, if there isn't enough left in the monthly budget, those donations to the food pantry are meant to help in exactly such situations, and it's good to know they are meant for anyone needing such help due to not having enough to buy everything essential. Your church secretary will know what pantry to suggest (or can find out or point you to someone that knows).

 

[Danielwright2311]

Churches are tasked by God to provide for their own poor first, which most do. My church was a magnet for poor people, and we helped them as much as our budget would allow. That said the outreach programs of the world's religions is enormous. But the poor are a bottomless pit of need which can not be satisfied.

That's good, Praise God for your church.

Now, if we could make all the churches follow your church, there would be no poverty at all.

 

[brinny]

This is a practical guideline:

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
~John Wesley

 

[devin553344]

I took this off a random website, so if someone has more accurate stats i would welcome them.

Hunger Statistics
Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we've compiled a list of useful facts and figures on world hunger.

• Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth.
• The vast majority of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished.
• Asia is the continent with the most hungry people - two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.
• Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.
• Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.
• One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight.
• One in four of the world's children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.
• If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.
• 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
• WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.

World Hunger Statistics

Those statistic appear strange. As I don't believe countries would account for all their people and deliver a statistic to the world. I wouldn't believe statistics just like I think polls are trash.

Did you really go to the whole earth and measure everyone's weight to see if they're malnourished. Or is it some con job to get you to give them money? I would tend to believe that latter.

There are people that go hungry obviously. I help my community and ignore the worlds problems since there are hungry people in my neighborhood and I can't save the whole world obviously.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Did you really go to the whole earth and measure everyone's weight to see if they're malnourished. Or is it some con job to get you to give them money? I would tend to believe that latter.

Both is true. There are multitudes malnourished even right here in the Untied States (otherwise , if no one was malnourished, 90% of the illness diagnosed would be gone)....
and the numbers of people starving and dying of thirst daily is staggering ... and is permitted by the Untied States Congress and World Government that controls a lot of what goes on ...

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

There are people that go hungry obviously. I help my community and ignore the worlds problems since there are hungry people in my neighborhood and I can't save the whole world obviously.

Yes, good.
The Message, Matthew 10,
38-39 “If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.

40-42 “We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.”

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Uh-huh.

And you don't thinks some peoples falls through the cracks?

Sure.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Of course poverty is unsolvable for the world, but individuals we can help.

True, and it's up to the individual to do so.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

If we were all doing our part, we'd all be looking beyond short term solutions.

The long term solution is the return of Jesus Christ: "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

 

[brinny]

Sure.

i'm there for the ones who do fall through the cracks, if i'm aware of it.

 

[brinny]

The long term solution is the return of Jesus Christ.

in the meantime....

 

[OldWiseGuy]

We don't need to control the politics to send any amount of help somewhere.

Regardless, when I said "if we all did our part", I meant if all of us did our part, including those in other nations.

If the "all' you refer to includes the people who aim lasers at aircraft, injuring the vision of the pilot, we're in a peck of trouble. Do you think people like this are sympathetic to the needs of people thousands of miles away? Also there are millions of people who do worse things than this to their fellow man. So where is all this money going to come from?

http://aviationweek.com/business-aviation/risk-laser-attacks-pilots-real-and-growing

 

[Root of Jesse]

I took this off a random website, so if someone has more accurate stats i would welcome them.

Hunger Statistics
Every year, authors, journalists, teachers, researchers, schoolchildren and students ask us for statistics about hunger and malnutrition. To help answer these questions, we've compiled a list of useful facts and figures on world hunger.

• Some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on earth.
• The vast majority of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished.
• Asia is the continent with the most hungry people - two thirds of the total. The percentage in southern Asia has fallen in recent years but in western Asia it has increased slightly.
• Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished.
• Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five - 3.1 million children each year.
• One out of six children -- roughly 100 million -- in developing countries is underweight.
• One in four of the world's children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three.
• If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million.
• 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
• WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.

World Hunger Statistics

I have to say, if it's only 1 in 9, we're doing a pretty good job. That's not to say we cannot do more, have you seen the obesity problem in America and Europe lately? I don't think it's a good idea to point to hunger in the world and expect rich nations to foot the bill. What's a better idea is for people, individuals, to live out the works of Mercy Jesus preached about.
There is another statistic, which shows what good statistics really are. We could put every human on earth comfortably in a space the size of Texas, and use the rest of the world to take care of all humanity's needs. This is not to say that it would be a good idea, or the right thing to do, but to point out that the problem is not that there's not enough food in the world. The problem is distribution of the world's resources.

 

[gideon123]

I share these thoughts - as someone who works in missions in sub-Saharan Africa. And yes you are quite right, the western world does not understand how much people suffer from hunger.

* It is very common in Nairobi, Kenya to see people sitting around at lunchtime. They have a lunch break, so they talk to friends. But they are not eating anything. Why? Because they have no money to buy food. So they have a lunch break - with no lunch. They only eat 2 meals per day. And countless thousands of people live this way in the city, all of their lives.

* You can talk to many mothers in Africa. They will tell you that sometimes they send their children to school with no breakfast. It breaks their hearts to do this, but they have no choice.

* If you visit a normal school in Africa, you will see the kids eating rice and beans for lunch. Only this food. No extra vegetables or meat. And the kids are VERY happy just to have this lunch in their stomach, because often their home cannot provide it.

* If you visit the homes of poor pastoral people during the day, perhaps they will offer you a cup of hot sweet tea for lunch. If you are lucky, a piece of dry bread as well. Nothing more. That is their entire lunch. And these people are working all day, and they are walking very long distances with their cows.

* It is an ENORMOUS SIN to throw away food in Africa. Nobody would ever contemplate doing such an awful thing! If you have a lot of food for dinner - lucky you! - and some food is left on the plates, then that food is scooped onto a fresh plate, and immediately they will offer it to their neighbors. And nobody in Africa is too proud to accept the handout ... your neighbors will thank you and give the food to their children immediately.

Therefore, small things that Americans take for granted, such as throwing away leftover food, are very big sins in Africa. I invite you to really think about that comment.

Blessings!!

 

[Root of Jesse]

As a community of people we do not do much at all for the poor, go out and panhandle and see how much you get, trust me, it will not be much at all.

And when you are homeless the so-called charitable corporations there are do nothing for you.

It's sad to see million dollar corporation doing nothing, but do not judge them, some of them do some things, like red cross, helps victims of disaster in the time of need. Food and clothing with temp shelter are in place. But the homeless still struggle.

It's the single-parent households that get help only for living and that ok, we should help them, but the homeless still get the short end of that stick.

Not true. I've worked in downtown areas and seen a man begging on the street. I surreptitiously watched one man for a while, from a distance. He wasn't getting chump-change. The guy wastaking in $20/hour, plus donations of food, which is higher than minimum wage here.
Most corporations do charitable work, at least finanacially.
Homeless struggle because they don't want the responsibility of having a home. Not all but most. I have also been in position to offer jobs-good paying jobs at market rate-which those same people wouldn't take. Why? Because they make more off the books on the street than on the books off the street. I've asked, many times.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Both is true. There are multitudes malnourished even right here in the Untied States (otherwise , if no one was malnourished, 90% of the illness diagnosed would be gone)....
and the numbers of people starving and dying of thirst daily is staggering ... and is permitted by the Untied States Congress and World Government that controls a lot of what goes on ...

It's the educational system, and the healthcare system, that ensures malnourishment, not the Congress. The dirty secret about so-called malnourishment is that most people, including the poor, eat too much. By insisting on the fallacious 2000 calorie per day diet for everyone, including the elderly, the sedentary, and most others who weigh less than 150 pounds, the 'shepherds' of our health ensure that we won't be. And of course most of 'us' don't know this, or just don't care.

 

[expos4ever]

With no intent to minimize the work that remains to be done, the data show that humanity has made tremendous advances in reducing poverty worldwide.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

in the meantime....

Keep up the good work.

 

[Root of Jesse]

I share these thoughts - as someone who works in missions in sub-Saharan Africa. And yes you are quite right, the western world does not understand how much people suffer from hunger.

This is very true.

* It is very common in Nairobi, Kenya to see people sitting around at lunchtime. They have a lunch break, so they talk to friends. But they are not eating anything. Why? Because they have no money to buy food. So they have a lunch break - with no lunch. They only eat 2 meals per day. And countless thousands of people live this way in the city, all of their lives.

I fast one meal a day and save the money from that to give to the poor. But if someone gets two meals a day, they're getting enough. That's why I only eat two meals a day-I don't need to eat more than that.

* You can talk to many mothers in Africa. They will tell you that sometimes they send their children to school with no breakfast. It breaks their hearts to do this, but they have no choice.

* If you visit a normal school in Africa, you will see the kids eating rice and beans for lunch. Only this food. No extra vegetables or meat. And the kids are VERY happy just to have this lunch in their stomach, because often their home cannot provide it.

Rice and beans is a common meal for me, too. It's a good healthy meal. Sometimes I eat meat with it.

* If you visit the homes of poor pastoral people during the day, perhaps they will offer you a cup of hot sweet tea for lunch. If you are lucky, a piece of dry bread as well. Nothing more. That is their entire lunch. And these people are working all day, and they are walking very long distances with their cows.

I must say that, before the 1920's, it was common for people to eat bread and milk most days of the week. Sunday dinner was when you got your one good meal of the week. Maybe midweek you'd get leftovers from Sunday dinner. My point is not that there are not hungry in the world, but that we eat too much. Even so, the problem is distribution of the food available, not so much that the poor don't have food.

* It is an ENORMOUS SIN to throw away food in Africa. Nobody would ever contemplate doing such an awful thing! If you have a lot of food for dinner - lucky you! - and some food is left on the plates, then that food is scooped onto a fresh plate, and immediately they will offer it to their neighbors. And nobody in Africa is too proud to accept the handout ... your neighbors will thank you and give the food to their children immediately.

Therefore, small things that Americans take for granted, such as throwing away leftover food, are very big sins in Africa. I invite you to really think about that comment.

Blessings!!

It is good advice. I don't throw away leftovers. Never. I tend to share my abundance locally. Another practice, prehistoric in nature, was when you had an abundance, everyone eats their fill and gets fat, with the understanding that there will be lean times. Most in America don't know what lean times are.