On your plate, serve only what you are able to eat up. If you are not sure if the food is tasty, take very little for a taste rather than heaping a lot and then leaving it on the plate to be thrown. If you manage your food well, you will spare some money and send it over to feed those who don’t have enough. God did not give you too much in order to waste, He did so that you may share.
The following story is an excerpt of a feature story in The Standard, a Kenyan daily.
Mercy Thuo was inspired to establish the home [Good Samaritan Children’s Home] in 1990 when she noticed that her eight-year-old son kept stealing food from her kitchen. Tired of reprimanding the boy, she followed him one day to find out where he took so much food.
To her surprise, she discovered he had been stealing it for his hungry friends. Her son had 10 friends and they would always hang around him, since he was sure of getting them the next meal.
Mercy had just moved into the area and was planning to put up "a big posh bungalow" but it was not to be. Her son rebelled and threatened to go to the street if she did not feed his friends.
"He told me I was so rich yet I was refusing to give them just a bit of food, which is not even a quarter of what I owned. I was so touched," says Thuo.
She began the project with 10 children. It had 220 by the beginning of the year, a factor that has strained Thuo’s resources greatly. Since she no longer has the resources she had accumulated from her personal savings and sale of property, the home relies completely on well-wishers.
Read why it is not Christian to throw food: Virtue That Counts (NB: scroll down to page 149 and read the subtopic: “No Wastage”).
Read more articles by Daniel Owino Ogweno or search for articles on the same topic or others.
What a reminder of the blessings so many of us have and take for granted, and a 'gentle reprimand' for me; as I am so guilty of wasting food. You have given me something to "chew" on. Thank you!
