Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Semi-Official Blog of Zack Hunt

Home
Progressive Christian
Losing Your Future Before You Ever Had One

Losing Your Future Before You Ever Had One

Last updated on: September 10, 2013 at 11:39 pm by Zack Hunt

Losing Your Future Before You Ever Had One 2013-09-10T23:39:17-06:00 Zack Hunt

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

(H/T Matthew Paul Turner)

This week I’m in Guatemala with the relief organization World Vision, witnessing and reporting on all the incredible work they are doing here. This is the first in a series of posts I’ll be sharing each day about my experiences. I hope you find them interesting, but more importantly I hope in some small way they inspire you to act.

In just two short months my wife and I will welcome our daughter into the world.

I can’t wait to meet her.

Every ultrasound picture, every doctor’s appointment, every little pink onsie that I hang up in what will very soon become her closet gets me more and more and more excited to meet her.

Excited to watch her grow up.

Excited to see who she will become.

Excited just to be her dad.

She was all I could think about this afternoon as I stood in a stuffy, tin roofed cinder block shack on a Guatemalan hillside and looked into the eyes of a little girl who couldn’t have been more than 2 or 3, but looked half that age.

She was there, along with several other children just a year or two older who, like herself, suffer from chronic malnutrition.

I know you know what malnutrition is. And I know you know what it means to have a chronic condition, but children who endure chronic malnutrition aren’t just missing a few meals.

They’re having their futures taken away from them before they’re even old enough to understand what the future is.

All of the things I will take for granted and probably complain about in the next few months and years – the bottles of milk, the jars of gross looking baby food, the first few bites of real food that will end up all over her face – those simple moments will in many ways define my daughter’s future.

Because she was (or will be) lucky enough to be born into even a modicum of privilege, she’ll spend the first 5 years of her life taking in all the vitamins and minerals and nutrients that are essential to the development of her body and, particularly, her mind.

It’s development that most of us taken for granted.

You eat, you grow.

It’s that simple.

But what happens when you don’t eat?

Or don’t eat enough.

Or not the right things.

As I learned in that stuffy, tin roofed cinder block shack today, the meals we eat or don’t eat in the first 5 years of our lives all but determine our future.

Obviously, if we don’t eat, we die. And premature death is the harsh, tragic reality for far too many children born in Guatemala.

But even having meals to eat may not be enough.

Without the right nutrition, the brain fails to form properly. Without that development, those children are less likely to stay in school. Without that education what few opportunities they had in life diminish even more, and then when they have children of their own and bring those children into the very same impoverished world they were born into the cycle of poverty begins anew.

You can help end that cycle of poverty.

You can help alleviate the chronic malnutrition that plagues so many children in Guatemala.

You can’t save all of them.

But you can save one.

And together, we might even be able save them all one day.

Or at the very least we can give all of them the same chance at life that we give to our own kids.

Poverty is an accident of birth for these children. They didn’t do anything to deserve it. They’re not lazy. They’re not mooching off the system because they don’t want to work. They’re simply the victims of one of the most tragic incarnations of bad luck imaginable.

They just as easily could have been born in our hometown hospital.

They just as easily could have been our children.

That little girl in the stuffy, tin roofed cinder block shack today could just as easily have been my own daughter if chance how played out differently.

As a soon to be father, looking into her eyes today broke my heart in two knowing that her future was forever changed before she even learned how to speak.

I know you weren’t there with me in that cinder block shack today, but I hope the mere fact that chronic malnutrition is destroying the future of innocent children shatters your heart too.

I’m sure it does. How could it not?

But I hope it does more than that.

I hope it compels you to adopt one of them as your own.

Not literally.

It’s not parents most of these children need. It’s food. And healthcare. And education.

And hope.

By simply clicking on this link and choosing to sponsor a child through World Vision you can give them all these things and more.

You can give them a future.

Grace and peace,

Zack Hunt

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 6, 2013

10 Reasons Christians Shouldn't Believe In Creationism

Next Post

September 12, 2013 If You Give A Mom A Fish

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Book Review Classifieds Commentary Fundie Friday Funny Pictures Music Video News Prophecy Technology Televangelist Throwback Thursday Tract Tuesday Tracts Uncategorized Videos

Select a Month June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 August 2018 June 2018 May 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 September 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz