FAQ 1 - Why Support Children in Liberia When We Have Issues Here?

Some of our posts will begin to answer some of the questions we have heard from folks about our mission trip to Camp 4, Liberia. This is the first of such posts, addressing "Why Support Children in Liberia When We Have Issues Here in the US?"
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CHILDREN OF THE MOUNTAINS
There was a special that aired this past Friday night called “A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains”. It was a 20/20 documentary by Diane Sawyer that detailed the lives of families in Appalachia, specifically Kentucky (If you missed it, you can view it here). There is a high school senior they document who is a stellar football player, the star of the team, who sleeps in his pickup truck each night. Another scene documents two sisters who live in a broke-down trailer while their mom dips back into prescription pain killer addiction, spending any money they do have on pills. Yet another segment shows how young men follow fathers into the coalmines to make what living they can, having lost most of their teeth due to their high consumption of Mountain Dew.

Some of the feedback we have received while fundraising for the Liberia Mission Trip has questioned the notion of sending money to children in another country when we have our own issues here in the US. It is almost a valid point, yet naïve & ill-informed.

The children of the Appalachian Mountains are certainly an impoverished group of people when compared to you and me. But poverty is relative. The United States contains the majority of the wealth in the world. Africa, by comparison, houses the world’s most-impoverished people. The average annual household income in the US is $44,970, compared to just $140 in Liberia. The percentage of children under five who have severely underweight is 14%, compared to 0% here in the US. The number of children in Liberia whose growth has been stunted from the lack of proper nutrition is 39%, compared to just 1% here in America. I compiled a chart with some additional comparisons below:

(click image to enlarge)

There are certainly tough times in America – many of us have experienced financial pain first-hand. But consider this: when the US get’s a cold, the world gets pneumonia. The financial burdens we feel here are only exacerbated in Liberia and other third-world countries. We are still King and Queens by comparison.

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
– Edmund Burke