Our Children Are Hungry

The newspaper headline read, “Life Is Daily Struggle, Fatherless Teens Say.” The article details the heartbreak of children without fathers, as they talked with teenagers who shared the stories of their own private pain.

One girl interviewed speculates that if her dad were around, “My mom wouldn’t be so lonely and stressed out and take stuff out on me.” If her dad were around, there’d be more money to pay bills and maybe a way out of their gang-infested neighborhood. And if her dad lived in the home, there wouldn’t be other men romancing her mother. At least 80% of the students in her school are being raised by unwed mothers.

I have talked with countless children here on Skid Row for nearly 70 years. I feel their pain. And I tell them about their loving heavenly Father. He wants to heal their broken hearts and take away their pain.

I talk with their single mothers, who must decide every day whether they will try to scrape together a few dollars to feed their children, or try to keep a roof over their heads. What a horrible decision for any parent to make, especially a single mom!

And then I read another newspaper headline, “Going to School Hungry,” with the sub-title, “Teachers often see students who have not eaten in days.”

One 13-year old boy confessed to stealing food from a convenience store. “Every night I go to bed hungry. Sometimes we eat at night, and sometimes we don’t.”

Please help me feed these little ones. Use a credit card when you phone 1-844-FJM-FOOD, or when you donate online, fjm.org.

The poor, the hungry, the needy are all around us. Jesus said, “When you feed the least of these, you feed me.”

Blessings,

Willie L. Jordan