Somalia

 

I’m sure you, like me, have been distressed by the recent news from Somalia, where drought is causing the worst humanitarian disaster for twenty years. Television portrays thousands of refugees streaming into Kenya and Ethiopia after days of walking without food or water to find shelter and relief.

The size of the problem overwhelms us, as potentially millions face starvation. We can send $50 or so to a trusted organization, but it seems pitiful in the face of so much suffering.

Even the idea of prayer seems pointless in the face of such great calamity. God can, but will he respond to my piteous prayer? It might accomplish $50 worth! But what if we all prayed fervently for the need? And publicly on facebook?

Any of you hackers out there able to open a “Pray for Somalia” Facebook page? I would do it, but deficient knowledge would take this.................long. Even then I might not get it right. Just a simple page where we could deposit our prayers, even update information about the tragedy.

That child could have been mine. Apart from an accident of birth, that could be me in that line-up. Ruling Islamist gangs make aid dangerous and ineffective. But a hundred or a thousand prayers publicly displayed on facebook may alert the world of the alternative to the world’s inability to “fix it.”

Let me know when the page is up. My prayer would be one of the first. Let’s be sure both God and the world hear us.