The face of a hungry
child is the face of Christ

Jesus is a hungry Afghani, will we give him nothing to eat?

Jesus’ life and ministry were good news to the poor and the oppressed. The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus showing compassion for someone that everyone else wanted to ignore. As Christians we are called to join in that ministry of compassion.

Jesus warned what the day of judgment would be like for those who called themselves his followers, yet showed no compassion. He will tell those people to depart from him, “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me” (Matthew 25:42-43).

Jesus identifies himself closely with all who suffer. Jesus said that when you do not do anything to help the least of people, then you are doing nothing to help him.

We, as a nation, are doing nothing to help the poor and the oppressed of Afghanistan to prepare for the winter. It’s not completely our fault. Our government did have military aircraft drop thousands of rations into Afghanistan.

Yet, for people whose own government does little to care for them, it was easy for their leaders to convince them not to eat the food dropped by the enemy. Thousands of meals were burned while people went hungry nearby. Some blamed the Christian symbols on the packages, the red crosses. Others swore we were trying to poison the people. Whatever the reason, our efforts to give food directly did not succeed.

And still, there are other ways to get food to the estimated seven million Afghanis who are threatened by starvation this winter. Most starving Afghanis are more concerned for their children and their own lives this winter than for whether the Northern Alliance or the Taliban gains the advantage in the ground war.

There are dozens of relief agencies that were successfully feeding people in Afghanistan until our bombing raids ceased their operations. With those relief operations on hold, Oxfam America President Raymond Offenheiser said in a statement, “we fear there will be huge loss of life and unspeakable suffering this winter.”

The problem is safe access to refugee camps.

Offenheiser went on to say, “It is now evident that we cannot, in reasonable safety, get food to hungry Afghan people. We've reached the point where it is simply unrealistic for us to do our job in Afghanistan. We've run out of food, the borders are closed, we can't reach our staff and time’s running out.”

Church World Service, a relief and development agency affiliated with the National Council of Churches in the USA, has called on the U.S. military for assistance asking them to “identify and allow for ‘safe corridors’ for the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”

While it is self-evident that safe corridors established for relief aid could be used by either the Northern Alliance or Taliban troops for military travel, the need of seven million people preparing for a harsh winter should take precedence. Later this month, the snows will begin and isolated rural areas will be cut off from relief groups. The time is short to save lives.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said God is, “notoriously biased in favor of the weak, the hungry and the oppressed.” If we truly fight for justice, our victory cannot come at the expense of defenseless people already suffering from draught, now cut off from aid by a war that is not necessarily their own.

We need to let the relief agencies, who were successfully delivering food to the needy, regain access to the roads to the camps. Providing a safe corridor for food is the right thing to do. Please write to our President, congressmen, and senators asking them to make a way where there seems to be no way.

When you see the face of a hungry Afghani child, you are not seeing the face of a potential suicide bomber, but the face of Christ.

One day, Jesus will proclaim that he was a hungry Afghani this winter of 2001. How can we face our Lord on that day, if we do not attempt to let the relief agencies back in to the drought ravaged areas soon on this day when help can still reach people in time? As we are holding back food from reaching the least of the Afghanis, we are holding back food from our Lord.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)