Generation Hope, a documentary we watched at the CL vacation, is a story about the impact of Mary’s Meals, an organization that began with a simple conversation between a hungry child and a man, who realized that he could do something about it. He started with just one village, and then began responding to requests from other villages and other countries, one at a time, and now feeds over 1M children daily. Not a dream to change the world and eradicate world poverty, but just one village. His method of engaging a real community was a provocation to me, especially being at a vacation with other people. I looked around the room, a beautiful one with a stone fire place at lodge by a huge, sparkling lake with towering trees lining our existence. It’s not often you witness children playing and smiling in the face of great poverty while you remain in a comfortable lodge in Big Bear, CA! The experience was an invitation to gratitude, but even in this I was feeling helpless as to what this reality has to do with my own life or my life in this community. Sure, we can donate money, but surely there has to be more than this.

We had the privilege of having a Q&A after the film screening with the director, Chuck Kinnane. He shared some of his experiences making the film, traveling to some of the most violent and impoverished parts of the world, and spending time with children in the villages. It goes without saying the difficultly of directing a story of such suffering in addition to concern for your own physical safety as well; so, I asked him how he was able to engage in the art of telling their story without breaking. How do you protect yourself from not feeling their hunger and pain so that you can function and think? He shared with us his experience coming home and ordering a meal from the push of button from his phone to be delivered directly to his apartment. In that moment of extreme convenience, he came up against all of it, and was broken. “You can’t protect yourself,” he said.

I realized all along I should have been asking how to confront the depth of reality so that I never escape life. Reality is not something to protect yourself from, even during summer vacation. I shouldn’t protect myself from feeling the pain of children’s hunger. These children have hopes and dreams for their lives; they desire happiness. Their hearts are no different than mine and yours.They have next to nothing, and confront that reality daily. By coming together with all of our brokenness maybe our hearts can connect, even when our experiences are so vastly different.