I sat at my chair looking down at my half full dish of spaghetti. I was stuffed and it felt like my stomach would explode if I ate another bite. I had already forced myself to eat more than I shoul,d but I didn't want to throw it out. I hated left over spaghetti. I reluctantly got up from my chair and started to scrape the left over food into the garbage. I paused and leaned against the wall as the smell of hunger returned to me and the image of those desparate eyes begging for food appeared vividly in my head like a forgotten conscience that refused to stay quiet.

I thought of the kids I had met in Peru and Argentina, mostly Peru where the people who lived there had just had their homes destroyed. The three year old children the same age as my sister, the children my age, the mothers, the fathers begging for food with relentless eyes that penetrated deeply into your psyche and made you wish you were Jesus and could produce loaves of bread or fish that would feed everyone. I gave them all the money I had, even though my teacher said, "Be careful, keep walking". How could I not? They were my age, my sister's age, wearing almost nothing, begging for food!

Where I live, kids beg their parents for the latest IPOd, nintendo wii and loads of material possessions because if they don't have it, they won't fit in. They beg as if their life depended on it. In Peru, kids begged for food so they could live. I couldn't help myself, a tear rolled down my cheek and I grew up in that moment as I saw the world through the eyes of the child begging for food. The eyes were eyes of uncompromising hope, eyes that said, I refuse to die and I refuse to stop believeing that you will give me food".  My teacher instructed me to get in the car and I did, but I turned one last time and gave the kids the to weeks supply of granola bars I had bought with me as I said, "I'll never forget your eyes". They cheered and chanted their thanks in Spanish. As we drove away they jumped on top of our car begging my teacher and uncle for food. They were convinced they had the same food I had and they needed it. They refused to give up until they had it. I turned to my uncle and teacher asking with the same relentless hope I saw in the eyes of the children outside, "Do you have any food? Please give it to them". My unlce and teacher reached into their knapsacks and took out their sandwiches, opened the window and passed it to the hands banging on the car.

During the ten or twenty minutes the children stayed on top of our car, I wasn't scared, I was hopeful for them. In that moment all of the self doubt I had as a boy visiting Peru evaporated and their ardent hope for life and their faith in people filled by body. I chanted with them, for them, believing in God's miracles and trusting in a better tomorrow. I was no longer the shell of a man concerned with vanity, greed or my own dreams. I was a man who saw the world thorugh the eyes of those children across the ocean, a man who had smelled hunger for the first time and knew he was accountable.

The truth is it's easy to lose that conscience when you return home. It's easy to become lost in the masses of consumer products and the slly jests of your classmates and forget that there are people and children fighting for their lives all over the world. I got up from the wall, returned to my seat and ate my spaghetti.  Next time, I'll cook less spaghetti.