In front of me, as I pen this piece, is the photograph of a little six year old boy with about eighty empty drinks bottles behind him and in these his family stores beans! This little chap appears to be guarding the family food store! Most of us reading this will have food in abundance, but that is not so in many places around the world.
Whilst speaking in the Orphanages in Uganda and Kenya I was very aware of the burden of the Staff having to feed all these boys and girls.
It was a joy to see the joy on their faces when I was able to leave a little money which our folks back home had given me for this very purpose.
Across West Africa alone, some ten million people have faced food shortages this year.
Drought has devastated the farming communities.
Again this is another environmental issue.
Information reaching me describes Niger as the worst affected country, and the area of Abalak, which is the size of Switzerland, relies on livestock, but inadequate rainfall has meant that thousands of animals have died.
Christian workers are toiling to remedy the situation.
Recently we had a missionary who has been working in neighbouring Chad speak to us and some two million people there are suffering from lack of food, and of course Darfur with its massive problems is more or less next door.
Ethiopians are no strangers to food deprivation, and over the past year the situation has improved slightly as a result of recent rains.
However, over five million Ethiopians still depend upon emergency food aid.
Food is something many of us in the rich West take for granted, and we even have a massive problem with obesity.
I have just looked again at the little boy guarding his eighty bottles of beans.
I am reminded of the amazing statistic that in the world there is thirty percent more food than is required.
Almighty God has done His part, but man has not distributed the resources as well as he could, and of course corruption and mismanagement and basic sin are at the root of much of the hardship.
Earlier this year I was involved in the provision of a well outside Kisumu City in Kenya and some three hundred people no longer have to traipse four miles a day carrying water.
That also means that children can spend some time doing homework at night rather than walking to buy water and then carry the heavy load home.
A little can achieve a lot.
Can a lot more of us not each do that little? The environmental improvements would be immense! One day we will be answerable for how we treated those who were in real need, and that tends to be overlooked or ignored or just forgotten! Sandy Shaw