Like many Canadians, I love Thanksgiving - getting the family together, eating turkey, enjoying the crisp fall air. It’s awesome!
This year, however, I must admit I’m having a hard time looking ahead to Thanksgiving weekend. The level of distortion going on around us at home and abroad weighs heavily – unprecedented global crises affecting millions and random attacks that have us all on edge. These events lead to challenging conversations with our children who can’t help but see what’s going on through the news and what’s being shared at school. How do we explain the world to them?
Over the years, Lindsay and I have found that telling the whole story is often helpful. Yes, tragedy is striking in unpredictable ways, but tragedy is not the whole story, or even the defining story. There is also hope.
Our Food for the Hungry (FH) staff and partners around the world are invested in bringing hope and healing to the most vulnerable, despite the fear and dangerous challenges that now permeate many communities that walk a thin line between vulnerable and thriving.
Some of those poignant stories of hope and overcoming, of kindness and generosity, are told in our most recent issue of Hope Notes. We tell the story of Martha who leveraged new techniques to provide a healthy home for her children, while at the same time finding a way to establish a steady income from a local resource. We tell Mulata’s story, how child sponsorship opened the doors of opportunity for his parents and improved his access to education. And after 12 years of walking with the Lowland Communities of Sasiga, Ethiopia, we tell the story of their graduation from poverty into a transformed and self-sustaining future.
With all the unknowns in our world, I’m thankful for stories like these that remind me that violence and destruction are not the last word. There really is hope, and that hope is spreading.
And I am personally thankful for you - your commitment, compassion, and generosity. By investing your time, energy, and finances in helping address the poverty and crises affecting your own community and communities around the world, you are acting as an agent of hope in a fearful world. Being Kingdom minded and knowing that God has a bigger plan to execute, together we can find ways to make an impact across industries, denominations, organizations, and governments to address these challenges.
So as you continue to place pieces of tragedy into the larger story of hope, be encouraged to find gratitude this Thanksgiving and to share it with your children, your family, and your community. Because there is hope.
With Gratitude,
Shawn Plummer
President & CEO, FH Canada
President & CEO, FH Canada
