Two Life-Changing Books
It’s a bold claim but I think it’s true: reading these two books (or even just one of them) could change your life.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow was a salmon farmer in Argyll when the Bosnian war broke out in the 1990s. Seeing the desperate plight of people caught up in the war zone, he and his brother decided to do something to help. He filled a truck with aid, took a week off work, and set off from Scotland to Bosnia.
This one-off act of generosity turned out to not to be a one-off at all. Magnus never went back to work as a fish farmer but delivered load after load of aid to Bosnia. Even when the Bosnian War came to an end, he and his family didn’t stop. They responded to other appeals from around the world and eventually set up the wonderful Mary’s Meals.
Mary’s Meals now feeds well over 2 million children in their place of education each day and so helps to lift them out of poverty. The Shed That Fed 2 Million Children tells that story.
I’d also highly recommend these films about the work of Mary’s Meals. Love Reaches Everywhere, featuring the actor Gerard Butler, is a really inspiring piece of work.
Child 31 is also a wonderful film, but more hard-hitting. It’s definitely worth watching but you may well end up shedding some tears.
Generation Hope is a great film to watch after the other two because it shows beautifully that change is possible. Lives are transformed by Mary’s Meals.
But what about the second book I mentioned: Give: Charity and the Art of Living Generously? In this great book, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow turns his attention to charity itself, a surprisingly undervalued concept. In an age of international aid and global development, he explains the continuing importance of charity, focusing on his own experiences and the work of Mary’s Meals.
I was reading it on the platform of a local train station recently and suddenly found myself welling up. I’m not quite sure what the commuters thought as I started wiping my eyes on Platform 2! In other words, Give is a book that appeals to the heart and the head. It, and The Shed That Fed 2 Million Children, is a book about lives transformed. Reading these books really might change your life.
In Child 31, Ana Laffont says that “Most of us go through life wondering if we can help but not really feeling that we can help. If you get involved in something like this you immediately help.”
It costs just £19.15 to feed a child for a whole year. If you would like to help immediately, you can do so here.