Some personal thoughts

After watching this link http://www.cultureu nplugged. com/play/ 1081/Chicken- a-la-Carte that was shared by a friend, I kept thinking the meaning of or the message behind this short video for over a week.
I encourage you to watch it first before reading the following message.

What do you feel after viewing the video?
What messages did the author intended to deliver to the audiences?
- Did the author think that it is a shame that we can't finish our dishes?
- Did the author think that it is a shame that we waste our food while some people have no food to eat?
- Did the author think we should order more food and leave the rest that we cannot consume in the restaurant in order for the poor to get more "delicious" food?
- Did the author think that the reason why the poor didn't have those food because we (the people who can afford to buy the food) ate their food?

For sure, it is a touching story. It reminds me that some people who live in our society have no foods to eat.

Yes, for us, we should say thanks to our God that we can choose what we like to eat and we can eat as much as we want. But we don't have to feel shame/guilty to have "good" foods to eat. For sure we shouldn't waste the foods. But then is it enough to help the poor? There're many ways to help them. E.g. giving healthy foods to the food bank (hey, don't give expired stuff), etc.

Something that was missing in this video is that how come the man had to collect "garbage foods" from the restaurant? Couldn't he even afford to buy some basic/ simple food for his family? I guess the whole story happened in the same country and even in the same local society. Otherwise, the man was not able to collect the "garbage food" from the restaurant and took them home. I know he had quite a few kids needed to be fed. But he still looked like a physically helathy man that he should able to work. If he got a job, he should able to buy some basic foods for the family that he didn't need to collect the "garbage foods". That's what I don't understand. That's something missing behind the scene.
If he got a job, but still couldn't afford the basic needs. Then, I guess the government/society should do something to help them. Like providing education or training to help him getting a better job... If he couldn't get a job because of helping his wife to take care of all the kids (actually he should think about it before planning for having kids. And it seemed that his wife was pregnant again. For many poor countries, the people don't have the birth control concept or they don't have the resources to do birth control ), the government or the community should also provide some helps that he could get back to the work force. I believe that helping the poor is not just to provide foods (it is only a short-term way to help) but to help them to become independent (it is a more long-term way to help them). In nursing, we always mention a word "Empower". To empower someone to become independent is a better way to solve the problem and also to re-build one's self-esteem.

I know it may not apply to some very poor 3rd world countries like Africa. Many people were died of hunger in those areas every day. They certainly need immediate help which is "food and clean water", but it doesn't mean that we should stop our help after feeding them. The next step may be to help finding water sources, to teach them how to grow some plants according to their weather and the land condition, etc...

On one hand, it seems that it is a sad story. But on the other hand, we can see love, caring and feeling of satisfaction in this video. We can see how happy and satisfaction the poor kids were when they started eating the "garbage foods". Their happy smiling faces couldn't be pretended. At that moment, they didn't care what they didn't have, but to enjoy what they had (even though the things were just "garbage" from the view of many people). Same as in the man's family, the kids were excited to have those foods. The father won't feel shame to bring those foods to his family. He even smiled and said grace to God. Even though they were poor, they had love and happiness in their family.
When we say grace to our God every day, is it truly from our heart to say thanks to our God?
It's time to learn not to complain for what we don't have.
To enjoy the Grace that we have!

Yes, there're many ways for us to help the poor. The question is "am I willing to help and what could I contribute?" And one more thing is please respect and love them.

Time to think and also to take action!