In case you haven’t already noticed, prices at the grocery store have been going up in the last few months. Food prices worldwide are on the rise this year for a number of reasons, including natural disasters in Russia, Argentina, and Australia, droughts in China, and sky-rocketing oil prices resulting from recent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa.
Since education paves a path out of poverty, we’re glad to help poor children make the most of their time in school. Especially when just getting to school is half the battle. Take the kids in rural Aripiaco, Guyana, for instance. Fr. Javier Correa recently took a few of us up river by speedboat to visit the elementary school there.
The recent conflicts in countries throughout the Middle East offer a glimpse of what can happen when people feel they’ve been treated unjustly. The result of perceived injustice can range from peaceful protests that bring about change to dangerous riots or clashes between citizens and the government.
“I wish my mother was alive today to see this house.” That’s what David Massinga said through his tears when he and his sisters first moved into a new home given to them by Cross International Catholic Outreach and its generous benefactors through one of our ministry partners in Mozambique.
Mozambique has been called an “African lion” – not because it is strong, but because it is stronger than it once was, having achieved modest economic growth and overcome bloody conflicts that plagued the country from the 1970s to the early 90s.
Don’t forget to wish a happy birthday to Charles Dickens, who turns 199 next Monday – but doesn’t look a day over 40! You may remember the British novelist as one of those “dead white males” you were forced to read in high school, but hopefully you paid attention, because his voice still strikes a relevant chord on issues of poverty, greed, and charity.