Who will ever forget those first pictures? There were pictures of starving men and starving women and starving children. These pictures stunned the world when they first hit our television screens. Pictures of Ethiopia. Pictures of an incredible famine. Millions of lives were at risk. And the world hardly knew about it until we saw the pictures. It was the pictures of the starving children that probably carried the most power. Babies sucking desperately at mother's empty breast, sucking for their life. Large brown eyes filled with tears and flies and fear. Distended stomachs. Bodies unimaginably lean. Innocent young lives were being snuffed out. The world shook its head in disbelief. The pictures, of course, motivated the world to action. Relief agencies from all over the world began to pour into Ethiopia. Christian organizations from our country also rushed to the scene of the disaster. Kathleen O'Meara was sent to Ethiopia on behalf of her church. Kathleen looked forward to the challenge. She had offered her life to her church for just such an occasion and now she would have a chance for service to humankind that would call forth her best gifts of serving.

When Ms. O'Meara arrived in Ethiopia, however, she was nearly overwhelmed by the devastating power of the famine. She was assigned to work in a feeding station in the northern part of Ethiopia. She went north with a convoy of trucks bearing sack upon sack upon sack of food. After two days of arduous travel the caravan finally arrived at its destination. Kathleen had seen many people along the roadside on the way north begging for food. At the feeding station, however, starving 57 people were just about all she saw. It seemed that for as far as her eye could see she saw nothing but starving, dying people. There were faint sounds from the youngest children. There were wails of despair from the lips of many of the women. There was an utter look of resignation and defeat in the eyes of men whose bodies were long and gaunt. Now there was work to be done. Kathleen was assigned to help distribute the many sacks of food that had been brought by the convoy. Sacks! Night and day that's all she would think of; all she could do. She saw those sacks in her troubled sleep each night. Sacks of food. Sacks that could bring life. Sacks were her mission and her hope. For Kathleen it was a daily round with the life-giving sacks of food. She came to see those sacks in her mind as a kind of symbol of hope in the midst of the devastation.

And then one day her eyes caught sight of an event that shattered her vision of the sacks as life-giving agents. That day she saw several hundred dead Ethiopians being carried to their graves in a funeral shroud. To her dismay the empty food sacks had now been filled with dead bodies. Sacks of life had become shrouds of death. The bitter irony of it all was almost too much for Ms. O'Meara. Sacks of life had become shrouds of death. She pondered deeply on this awful turn of events. "What the world needs," she mused to herself, "is for someone wrapped in the shrouds of death to bring new life and hope to the world." Sacks of life had become shrouds of death. What if a shroud of death became a garment of life? Would anyone believe such a story? Or would the world pass it off as just an idle tale?"