A Guest Post by Ask5for5

Hello friends! Today's post is from a friend of a friend who is doing all she can to make a positive impact in the world, and I want to help support her cause. Please read and do what you can if you are so inclined. Thanks you! -Chris . . .

Guest Blogger: Sarah Lenssen from #Ask5for5
Family photos by Mike Fiechtner Photography

Thank you Shredded Man Card and nearly 150 other bloggers from around the world for allowing me to share a story with you today, during Social Media Week.

A hungry child in East Africa can't wait. Her hunger consumes her while we decide if we'll respond and save her life. In Somalia, children are stumbling along for days, even weeks, on dangerous roads and with empty stomachs in search of food and water. Their crops failed for the third year in a row. All their animals died. They lost everything. Thousands are dying along the road before they find help in refugee camps. 

At my house, when my three children are hungry, they wait minutes for food, maybe an hour if dinner is approaching. Children affected by the food crisis in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia aren't so lucky. Did you know that the worst drought in 60 years is ravaging whole countries right now, as you read this? Famine, a term not used lightly, has been declared in Somalia. This is the world's first famine in 20 years.12.4 million people are in need of emergency assistance and over 29,000 children have died in the last three months alone. A child is dying every 5 minutes. It it estimated that 750,000 people could die before this famine is over. Take a moment and let that settle in.

The media plays a major role in disasters. They have the power to draw the attention of society to respond--or not. Unfortunately, this horrific disaster has become merely a footnote in most national media outlets. News of the U.S. national debt squabble and the latest celebrity's baby bump dominate headlines. That is why I am thrilled that nearly 150 bloggers from all over the world are joining together today to use the power of social media to make their own headlines; to share the urgent need of the almost forgotten with their blog readers. Humans have the capacity to care deeply for those who are suffering, but in a situation like this when the numbers are too huge to grasp and the people so far away, we often feel like the little we can do will be a drop in the ocean, and don't do anything at all.

When news of the famine first hit the news in late July, I selfishly avoided it. I didn't want to read about it or hear about it because I knew I would feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I wanted to protect myself. I knew I would need to do something if I knew what was really happening. You see, this food crisis is personal. I have a 4-year-old son and a 1 yr-old daughter who were adopted from Ethiopia and born in regions now affected by the drought. If my children still lived in their home villages, they would be two of the 12.4 million. My children: extremely hungry and malnourished? Gulp. I think any one of us would do anything we could for our hungry child. But would you do something for another mother's hungry child?

My friend and World Vision staffer, Jon Warren, was recently in Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya--the largest refugee camp in the world with over 400,000 people. He told me the story of Isnino Siyat, 22, a mother who walked for 10 days and nights with her husband, 1 yr-old-baby, Suleiman, and 4 yr.-old son Adan Hussein, fleeing the drought in Somalia. When she arrived at Dadaab, she built the family a shelter with borrowed materials while carrying her baby on her back. Even her dress is borrowed. As she sat in the shelter on her second night in camp she told Jon, "I left because of hunger. It is a very horrible drought which finished both our livestock and our farm." The family lost their 5 cows and 10 goats one by one over 3 months, as grazing lands dried up. "We don't have enough food now...our food is finished. I am really worried about the future of my children and myself if the situation continues."

Will you help a child like Baby Suleiman? Ask5for5 is a dream built upon the belief that you will.

That something I knew I would need to do became a campaign called #Ask5for5 to raise awareness and funds for famine and drought victims. The concept is simple, give $5 and ask five of your friends to give $5, and then they each ask five of their friends to give $5 and so on--in nine generations of 5x5x5...we could raise $2.4 Million! In one month, over 750 people have donated over $25,000! I set up a fundraiser at See Your Impact and 100% of the funds will go to World Vision, an organization that has been fighting hunger in the Horn of Africa for decades and will continue long after this famine has ended. Donations can multiply up to 5 times in impact by government grants to help provide emergency food, clean water, agricultural support, healthcare, and other vital assistance to children and families suffering in the Horn.

I need you to help me save lives. It's so so simple; here's what you need to do:

1. Donate $5 or more on this page (http://seeyourimpact.org/members/ask5for5)
2. Send an email to your friends and ask them to join us.
3. Share #Ask5for5 on Facebook and Twitter!

I'm looking for another 100 bloggers to share this post on their blogs throughout Social Media Week. Email me at ask5for5@gmail.com if you're interested in participating this week.

A hungry child doesn't wait. She doesn't wait for us to finish the other things on our to-do list, or get to it next month when we might have a little more money to give. She doesn't wait for us to decide if she's important enough to deserve a response. She will only wait as long as her weakened little body will hold on...please respond now and help save her life. Ask 5 for 5.

Thank you on behalf of all of those who will be helped--you are saving lives and changing history.


p.s. Please don't move on to the next website before you donate and email your friends right now. It only takes 5 minutes and just $5, and if you're life is busy like mine, you probably won't get back to it later. Let's not be a generation that ignores hundreds of thousands of starving people, instead let's leave a legacy of compassion. You have the opportunity to save a life today!
 

9/11

Since tomorrow is the anniversary of 9/11, I thought it might be good to get some of the thoughts I have about it out of my head and onto this blog.

On 9/11/2000, I saw the news of the first plane hitting the first tower, but at the time no one knew what was going on.  I dropped my son at daycare and drove to Boulder to work, listening to the news as it happened on the radio.  It was then that the second plane hit, and the first thought that went through my head was "holy shit, we're actually under attack here".  My first instinct was to turn around and go get my son, but I kept driving to work.  In hindsight, he was never in danger and it wasn't a big deal, but I still wonder if I did the right thing at the time before I knew the extent of what was going on.  At work, everyone in the office was huddled around a small TV in someone's cube, still watching as things unfolded.  Then the first tower fell, and everyone gasped.  And that's about all I remember, other than it was impossible to work that day. 

Bullies rank right at the top of my list of people that piss me off the most, and when the actions of bullies take thousands of completely innocent lives and cause the physical and emotional destruction that was caused that day, it brings about feelings that are probably hatred, but it pains me to even use that word to describe other humans.  But I was right there mentally with so many other Americans just hoping we would find these bastards and get our revenge.  The sheer magnitude of what they did goes so far beyond anything I could ever comprehend, and when I think about it that way, it makes me pessimistic that we'll ever truly be able to have peace with "those people". 

And when I start thinking in terms of "those people", the next thought that crosses my mind is...how many completely innocent Muslims are here, and how can they possibly handle the judging and stereotyping and bigotry that has been thrust upon them through no fault of their own?  I am the first to admit I am very ignorant about Islam and what it teaches other than from things I've seen in the media.  I've heard so many mocking calls of Islam as the "religion of peace", and again, I admit that I often get skeptical about that religion in general, which is completely unfair, but I'm a white Christian American and I'm human.  I know more about the history of Christianity, and from that aspect, I can see why the middle east is biased against it (in general).  I know that the Christianity that I believe in is not the violent religion that it once was or is made out to be by many non-Christians, and I imagine that there are Muslims who know the same about their religion of choice.  Again, I'm just afraid there are too many dumb, blind people in this world on both sides of the equation to truly ever allow everyone to live together peacefully.  I hope I'm wrong.  Along those same lines of thought, I wonder if our country, as radically divided as it is right now, would pull together again like it did after the attacks if, God forbid, we were ever to be attacked again. 

Every so often, particularly around this time of year, I find some 9/11 videos on youtube and relive it again.  I still get goosebumps when I hear the 911 calls of people in the towers, then hear their last screams as the tower they are in collapses and they plummet to earth.  I can't imagine how that would have felt.  Or to see the videos from the lobbies, and hearing the loud crashes of people who just jumped out of the 100th story of a building because it was the BETTER choice than staying up there.  Again, completely beyond my comprehension.  Or seeing the firefighters marching onto the scene dutifully, and knowing that a good number of them would never return.  It makes my blood boil when I see these things, and maybe it isn't healthy, but it helps remind me of what some people are capable of. 

I'm so grateful that we haven't had another attack like that here ever since.  The measures put in place after the attacks, which many would consider encroaching on civil liberties, have been just fine in my book.  There are probably better, more efficient ways to do things, but so far it seems to have worked.  If TSA agents want to stare in awe at my pixelated nether regions (maybe they were just laughing), or cop a feel in the name of safety, then have at it.  The vast majority are just doing their job, and although it may not be the popular opinion, I'm fine jumping through a few hoops if it means there may be a better chance of the plane making it to my destination unharmed.

Sorry for such a downer post, but this time of year is about reflection on (hopefully) the biggest tragedy I'll ever witness in my lifetime.  Here's to all the heroes of that day, and here's hoping this country will never need that degree of heroics ever again.