At the second annual Bonita Springs Prayer Breakfast, Hall didn't ask the attendees for money; he didn't ask them to travel abroad to fight poverty; he didn't ask them to solve hunger nationally and internationally. He asked for their prayers. "You pray for leaders not because they are better than you, but because they have the ability to make things better," Hall said. "Looking at the state of the world today, we aren't praying hard enough." Former Congressman Tony Hall of Ohio was ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand in the 1960's.
Tony Hall talks about hunger in Bonita
Nobel Peace Prize nominee talks about hunger in Bonita
By BRAD KANE (Contact)
12:20 p.m., Thursday, March 6, 2008
Roughly 25,000 people will die from hunger today.
Tony Hall -- three times Nobel Peace Prize nominee, former U.S. Congressman from Ohio and Ambassador for Opportunity International -- delivered his message of faith, hope and world hunger Thursday morning in Bonita Springs as many of the city's upper crust dined on a buffet breakfast at the Spanish Wells Country Club.
At the second annual Bonita Springs Prayer Breakfast, Hall didn't ask the attendees for money; he didn't ask them to travel abroad to fight poverty; he didn't ask them to solve hunger nationally and internationally.
He asked for their prayers.
"You pray for leaders not because they are better than you, but because they have the ability to make things better," Hall said. "Looking at the state of the world today, we aren't praying hard enough."
When he was started out as a congressman from Dayton, Ohio, Hall traveled to Ethiopia in 1984 during a famine where 7,000 people were dying every day. Several thousand natives had walked to meet his entourage -- in some cases having traveled hundreds of miles -- because the organization Hall was with had set up a relief tent.
As people pushed children into his arms, thinking he was a doctor, begging him for salvation, Hall was told the relief could only come for five children out of the thousands starving. The group picked the five children, and everyone else died.
From that point on, Hall dedicated his life toward helping to end poverty and hunger, eventually becoming chairman of Congress's Select Committee on Hunger and working with relief organizations after his 24 years as a U.S representative.
"Even in the Congress of the United States, we do things that don't matter much, and I wanted to make my life count," he said.
Hall said his relationship with God helped make him a better Congressman, and he injected his faith into his work. When Congress elminated the Select Committee on Hunger, Hall went on a fast for 22 days -- with many schools and universities around the nation joining him -- to bring it back.
"The experience of working with the poor, we are lending to God," he said.
God was present in thought, word and deed at the prayer breakfast on Tuesday as the entire event centered around praising Him for Almighty works and inspiration.
Retired U.S. Marine Corps General Charles Krulak, who introduced Hall, told his story about how before the U.S. forces could invade Kuwait in January 1991, they needed a steady supply of water. Despite being in the Saudi Arabian desert, Krulak's soldiers prayed for help, and one day, Krulak's colonial discovered a fully operational water pump a mile from camp along a road the general and his men had driven at least twice a day.
"I was the general that was blessed to touch a miracle in the miracle well," Krulak said.
Bonita Springs Mayor Jay Arend pointed out that the preamble's of every state constitution in the United States in some ways gives praise to God. It reminds him of how God's law ruled before the government's law.
"Now, when I awaken each morning, my preamble will be I will be grateful to God for that day ... for he is the reason for me being here," Arend said.
