Thoughts of the day...

Good evening, my friends!

I have 12 pageviews from Russia, 12...according to the stats...12. From Russia! I won't lie, I was excited to see that my little blog has broken the banks of Australia and the U.S!
So, I feel I must say a hearty 'G'day! Let's throw another shimp on the barbie' to my Russian readers.
Firstly, my Russian friends, if you have heard the above phrase before, and if it does in fact make you think of Australia, I need to inform you that we don't say that phrase, except if we want to make fun of how we must be viewed by the rest of the world :) We don't even call them 'shrimp', we call them 'prawns'...a 'shrimp' would be a term for someone short, whether that be a child, or someone who is in fact, genetically short...I do not suffer from such genetic stature myself, but I have a few friends that do, and I love them just the same ;) And we don't 'throw them on the barbie', that's for sure!

So, back to Russia! Thanks for visiting, and I hope to see more stats of you guys visiting my blog :)

Well, as you may have read previously, I am a fan of 'The Hunger Games'. I bought the first book in the trilogy last Thursday, and finished it Monday night. I then managed to borrow the other 2 books from a friend, got them last night, finished book number 2 last night, and am 4 chapters in to book number 3. I am hooked! The story that runs through the books (promise I won't give away anything major, just in case you were gettting worried!) covers a lot of emotional ground, it is sad, suspenseful, happy, confusing, angering, & though provoking.
A friend said to me recently that she wonders whether the writer was trying to draw some parallel between the books and our own lives. Those living comfortably in homes being those that live in The Capitol, and those that are suffering from things like homelessness, war, and poverty being those in The Districts (not so much the 1st few districts though). Now, if you have read the first book, or watched the movie, you will understand completely what I'm saying, those that haven't, I am sure you can get the general idea of the parallels.
I have been thinking about these paralells as I have been reading the books. I have been thinking a lot about how blessed I am to have a roof over my head and food to eat. I go through phases of being thankful to God for all the ways He has blessed me, two of the millions of things being food and shelter.

The stats on worldhunger.org state the following for the period of 1996-2010:
 
In round numbers there are 7 billion people in the world. Thus, with an estimated 925 million hungry people in the world, 13.1 percent, or almost 1 in 7 people are hungry.

One in 7. There are 7 children in my family, that means one of us would be going hungry. This is something that I cannot even begin to imagine! How awful would it be for a mother and father to watch their child slowly starve to death, for siblings to watch also. How dreadful to be working so hard to feed your family, and to watch them die.


My husband went looking for food every day in the bush but there was not much to hunt. It was like the whole country was dying. Some days, he will come with enough from the bush to eat for one meal; other days we will go hungry. We went hungry more days than we ate. My children started dying slowly.

"I lost four of my six children to hunger. We felt helpless. There is nothing in the world worse than watching your own child die in front of your eyes because you cannot feed him.


This was part of an article I just read about a mother of 6 children on irinnews.org.


How incredibly heart wrenching! I don't have any children, but I have 7 nieces and nephews, and just the thought of any of them going days without food is unbearable, but to be powerless to help them?? My goodness, how dreadful!




I guess the point of all this is to say that it has gotten me thinking, and I hope it has gotten you thinking also. Australia certainly a plave that isn't free from needy people and families, but I am so incredibly blessed, by not being hungry or homeless, that I want to help! I have done the 40 hour Famine a few times in the past, which is a great event, but there are so many other ways to help too!


As I mentioned, a great way to help is to raise money for things like the  40 Hour Famine.
Or you could donate a sum to an organisation that is helping families struck with poverty, a few suggestions are:Compassion Australia
World Vision 
Caritas Australia 
Plan Australia
Or, you could sponsor a child:
Compassion Australia
World Vision 
The Smith Family 
 I am sure there are many other websites and organisations that help needy families.
Another website that comes to mind is:
Tear Australia
On this site, you can buy anything from school supplies for a child, to a goat, to family health care, right through to a community school, or a water sanitation project for an entire village! It's a wonderful site, and a great idea for birthday/Christmas presents for friends and family, as it is helping people in need, and they give you a little card explaining what you gift has done.

Anyway, just some things that I've really been thinking about these past few days. I am so very blessed, and I am going to try to spread these blessings by helping others that are not as fortunate as me.

Bye for now :)