Skip to main content

One meal a day in Swaziland

If you’re a child in Swaziland, you’re doing well to get one meal a day. Eating is a privilege.  You have to hike miles to get water.  You grow up accustomed to the regular gnawing pain of your stomach growling.    And in the southeast of the country where we work, it’s as …
By Seth Barnes
By Seth Barnes
If you’re a child in Swaziland, you’re doing well to get one meal a day. Eating is a privilege.  You have to hike miles to get water.  You grow up accustomed to the regular gnawing pain of your stomach growling. 
 
And in the southeast of the country where we work, it’s as bad as it gets.  When we first arrived there a year and a half ago, small children clothed in rags often wandered by, desperate for food.
 
Things are a little better now.  We serve them a regular meal every day.  Karen and I just got back from Swaziland yesterday. One of our highlights came when the community bought a goat (Gary Black was given the honors of slitting its throat) and served it with a plate of rice and beans to the children.  Nothing in that goat was wasted.  If you look closely in the video above, you’ll see that most are just getting a little piece of intestines in a broth.
 
I grew up in a house where you heard, “Eat everything on your plate,
there are orphans starving in Africa.”  It’s one thing to hear that and
quite another to see it. It was humbling to watch how ravenously they consumed whatever they got.  We complain about our food here in America, yet we are a nation that struggles mightily with gluttony. 
 
I don’t think I’ll be so nit picky about what I’m served for quite a while. 
 
Want to help? 7 cents a day feeds an orphan and $50 buys all 700 orphans in Nsoko a meal. Click here to give.
 
 

Comments (6)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More Posts