Friday, July 10, 2009

What counts as news today?

Seriously? One of the lead stories on the NBC TODAY SHOW this morning was about a group of children selling items by the pool and getting robbed of their $147 by a local cheerleader. Don't get me wrong, I'm very sorry these children got robbed. HOWEVER, I have 2 issues with this being a lead story. 1. They plastered this 17-year old cheerleaders face and name all over national media. Come on, people. She made a mistake. She doesn't have a record. She was stupid and did something wrong and is sorry. Now, because NBC thought it would make a cute story she will be ruined.

2. seriously? This is the NEWS? I just read this morning on AllAfrica.com (you can sign up to get email updates when stories are written about specific topics or countries) that another 15,000 sit on the brink of starvation. That brings the number to 100,000+ in just a few districts. Literally, over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND people are on the brink of starving to death and NBC has to talk about a cheer leaders poor mistake and oh yeah. . .gotta throw a couple more Michael Jackson stories in there.

Why oh Why?!? ARGH!


Please continue to pray for Uganda's food situation: We were able to help some. . .but there are many left hungry. Thankfully, the Ugandan gov't as well as a few aid organizations are responding. . .but the situation is dire. My eyes continue to water as I consider these people who God has laid so heavily on my heart and the situation many find themselves in today. This was said about the Katakwi District in which HopeChest hopes to have several carepoints (let us know if YOUR church wants to be a part of long term, sustainable ministry to these precious ones of God):

"Ekongot (Katakwi chairperson) said the people had planted food, but the weather conditions like floods and prolonged drought let them down. "It is not that our people are lazy. People had planted food, but because of the unpredictable weather patterns, people lost all the crops in their gardens," he said.

Ekongot said hunger had affected education in the district as many schools were registering high drop-out rates because school children cannot concentrate on empty stomachs. "About 80% of our children now do not go to school because some of them have not eaten in the last four days," said Ekongot."


Let that move us to our knees.

4 comments:

Donna Barber said...

I agree- I am really tired of stupid stories while children in Africa go un noticed. Or how about the never ending stories of how bad it is here... would you like to live in Africa with less than nothing some days?

You would think with a president who is supposedly from Kenya (I say that loosely) that the media or even he would have more focus on that continent now. Celebrities get involved and that is great but most of the time it is to bring them selves attention and the funds go to organizations who pay themselves mega salaries and no one knows where the money is spent.

ok Brandi- you and I should be in charge.... haha!

Dearest Jessica said...

I thought the same thing about that poor girl. I guess you never know when your childish mistakes will be headline news.

I do wish they would include real news stories of people all over the world. They don't even have to go out of the country if the just look out the back door.

the Matt family said...

did you guys adopt from uganda?

Brandi said...

Meghan,

No, we didn't. Our little guy is from Liberia, West Africa!

Brandi