Food for the Hungry

Earlier this month I wrote about the problem of domestic hunger in the U.S. Today I am writing about the problem of hunger in the poorer countries of the world and about combating that serious and ongoing problem.

For a long time I have been a supporter of the organization known as Food for the Hungry. FH was founded in 1971 and has for many years been an international organization. FH/Japan was formed in 1981, and for many years Eisuke Kanda was the head of it.

In the 1980s, we invited Kanda-sensei to be the Christian Focus Week speaker at Seinan Gakuin University, and I was able not only to get to know him personally but also to hear firsthand about the good work FH/Japan was doing overseas. (Domestic hunger has not been much of a problem in Japan for quite some time.)

Last month I was in Cambodia and spent some time with Hwang Ban-suk, a Korean missionary who is partially supported by, and thus who works with, Korea Food for the Hungry International. I was also impressed by Troeun Nhao, the Cambodian man who works with Hwang and KFHI.

In response to the chronic hunger problem in Cambodia, especially in the rural areas, Hwang literally and directly supplies food for the hungry. He takes bread to malnourished children several times a week.

Mrs. Hwang is a volunteer kindergarten teacher in a small school on the outskirts of Siem Reap, the city where Angkor Wat attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists yearly. I was told there are some 600 hotels and “guest houses” in Siem Reap. Numerous Western and East Asian restaurants line the main roads through the city.

But just a few miles out of town, most people live in poverty. For some families, their yearly income is no more than a party of four spends for one dinner at one of the Japanese or Korean restaurants in town.

On my first full day in Siem Reap, I helped distribute food at the school where Mrs. Hwang teaches, handing out bread to the children who lined up and thankfully received what we gave them.

For a long time, though, I have thought that even more than helping those who are hungry now, attention needs to be given to dealing with the causes of hunger. Of course the former needs to be done, but only helping with the present problem of hunger is never enough.

Whether domestically or overseas, it is more important to work toward decreasing hunger in the future than to simply give food to hungry people in the present.

That is a problem with most local food distribution groups. To be sure, they do a good and important work in helping needy people now. But usually they do nothing to help solve the underlying causes of the hunger problem.

Thankfully, Food for the Hungry focuses on both. Hwang is involved in development projects as well as in relief efforts. (I was sorry the language barrier kept me from learning more specifically about what he is doing in working for long-term solutions.)

Part of the needed change in Cambodia is in the mind-set of the people. This seems quite clear from reading Joel Brinkley’s book “Cambodia’s Curse: The Modern History of a Troubled Land” (2011).

That is why I am glad to support the work of Food for the Hungry, a Christian organization, and the work of Missionary Hwang, now partly centered in New Hope Church, which I wrote about previously.

"Lucky Child"

Loung Ung considers herself a lucky child. That is mainly because she escaped being killed by the Khmer Rouge in her native Cambodia and then was able to emigrate to the United States when she was ten years old.

Loung was born in 1970 to a Cambodian father and a Chinese mother in Phnom Penh. She didn’t seem like a lucky child, though, in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge forced all the middle class people, like her family, out of the capital city and into rural labor camps. Over the next four years, her parents and one sister were killed by ruthless Khmer Rouge soldiers, and another sister died of food poisoning.

“First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers” (2000) is Loung’s first book. It is a personal account of her experiences during the Khmer Rouge years from 1975 to 1979. The book became a national bestseller, and in 2001 it was given the “Excellence in Adult Non-fiction Literature” award by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association.

Ung’s second book is “Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind” (2005). It is one of two books I read in preparation for my visit to Cambodia earlier this month, and it is quite impressive.

“Lucky Child” tells about Loung’s going with her oldest brother and his wife to a refugee camp in Thailand and then on to the U.S. With the sponsorship of Holy Family [Catholic] Church in Essex Junction, Vermont, they were able to settle in that small town and start a new life.

For about 2/3 of the book, the odd-numbered chapters tell of Loung’s life in the U. S. from 1980 until 1993, and the even-numbered chapters tell what was happening to Chou, her sister who is two years older, back in Cambodia. Then in the 27^th chapter she tells of her first visit back to Cambodia in 1995 and joyfully reuniting with Chou and other family members after fifteen years.

“Cambodia’s Curse” (2011) is the other book I have been reading over the past month. The author is Joel Brinkley, a journalist who wrote for the New York Times for more than 20 years. His book vividly describes the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979, and afterward.

I had not known (or remembered) that Cambodia was under direct control of the United Nations in 1991-92. According to Brinkley, this first and only example of the U.N. taking charge of a country was a dismal failure. But according to Loung’s memoir, the situation was considerably better after 1992, so it seems that the work of UNTAC (the United Nations Transitional Authority of Cambodia) was effective.

After graduating from Saint Michael’s College in 1993, Loung worked for years to help rid Cambodia (and other countries) of landmines, which has been a terrible problem in that sad country. The village chief who donated the land where New Hope Church was built (as I wrote about here) stepped on a landmine years ago and now has an artificial leg.

Ung was, indeed, a lucky child in many ways—and one of those ways was being born into a middle class family. Most Cambodians did not have the opportunity to leave the country as she did. She was also “lucky” in having the talent to write so well.

And I consider myself “lucky” to have found Loung Ung’s captivating book “Lucky Child” and to have learned so much about Cambodia from it. I think you, too, would be inspired by reading this outstanding story of surviving and thriving.

New Hope in the Killing Fields

You all have probably heard the term “killing fields” used to describe the horrendous atrocities committed in Cambodia in the 1970s. And maybe most of you have seen the heart-rending movie released in 1984 with that title.

“Killing Fields” won three Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor by Haing S. Ngor, who was himself a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime and the labor camps. Prior to the Khmer Rouge’s “Year Zero,” he was a medical doctor based in Phnom Penh.

But in 1975, Ngor was one of millions who were relocated from the city to forced labor camps in the countryside. He spent four years there before fleeing to Thailand.

Pol Pot (1925~98) was the diabolical leader of the Khmer Rouge, which slaughtered nearly a fourth of the Cambodian people between 1975 and 1979. He died and is buried in the Anlong Veng District of northern Cambodia. One of the many “killing fields” was in that area. 

But now there is a new church building in a small village in Anlong Veng, and it was my privilege to speak at the dedication service for that beautiful new building last Friday. 

The name of the new structure is New Hope Church. Through a strange string of connections, it was given that name because of New Hope Church in Worth County, Mo., which was my father’s home church.

A Japanese friend suggested that name, remembering it from when we took her to north Missouri in the fall of 2005. She also financed the project, and her husband drew the plans and supervised the construction of the new church building in Anlong Veng.

The dedication service was an elaborate affair, attended by well over three hundred people, with far more than half of them children. At the beginning and near the end of the service, some of the local children performed traditional Cambodian dances. 

My message was based on Romans 5:1-5, and I titled it “New Hope for Anlong Veng.” Nhao Troeun, a fine young Cambodian man who works with the Food for the Hungry organization, translated the sermon into Cambodian.

New Hope Church in Anlong Veng will be used for the ministry of Missionary Hwang Ban Suk from Korea. Through a Korean business partner, my Japanese friend became acquainted with Missionary Hwang’s sister and her husband, who is a pastor in Seoul (and where I had the joy of preaching on June 2). Through that connection she learned about the work of Missionary Hwang and ended up building the new church for his ministry.

Last Friday after “dinner on the grounds,” attended by most of the adults who were at the dedication service (the children had to go back to school), I went with my Japanese friends (seven in all) to visit the nearby area where Pol Pot died and is buried. It was about a 20-minute drive from New Hope Church and less than a mile from the Thai border.

During the years Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia, most of the people who were not killed lived in fear, great physical need, and a general state of hopelessness.

Although the political situation has improved considerably in the last 20 years, there is still widespread poverty throughout most of the rural areas. With the new church building now ready for use in his ministry Missionary Hwang will be even more effective in fostering new hope in the hearts of the people of Anlong Veng, one of the former killing fields in Cambodia.