Information Related to "A Return to Eden: An End to Hunger and Disease"
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"The poster children that tug at our heartstrings are all there, wide-eyed and ribbed with pain, their skulls grotesquely out of proportion to their withered bodies," wrote World Food Program executive director James Morris about a drought- and locust-caused famine in Niger in 2005.
"Their skin hangs loose on feeble bones and many feed through tubes taped
to their faces. They are gathered to play out their final days on a well-worn
set that many may never leave."
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than 840 million people go hungry every day. As a result, 25,000 people die every day from malnutrition and hunger-related disease—three quarters of them children under five (www.just1world.org/food-and-hunger.htm).
Children make up about half of the approximately 50 million refugees in the world. More than 2 million children were killed in conflicts in the 1990s. Another 6 million were wounded and 1 million orphaned.
Millions more children (and adults) are stricken with disease, maimed or disabled each year.
Such heartrending stories and statistics make us cry out to God for His promised Kingdom to come—even while we do what we can to help today.
The prophet Ezekiel records some of God's fantastic promises for a world beyond today:
"I will raise up for them a garden of renown, and they shall no longer be consumed with hunger" (Ezekiel 34:29; see also 36:29-30).
Famine has afflicted mankind throughout history. Every effort to end hunger by greater agricultural production and massive relief programs has failed. Wars, droughts, disease and government inefficiency and corruption have combined to thwart even the great gains of the green and biotech revolutions.
Related Information on UCG Sites:
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