Max's Thoughts on World Hunger and Poverty

The following is a note from one of our students, a young man in the 10th grade named Max. He is being challenged to really live out his faith in a meaningful way. This is exactly why we do things like the 30 Hour Famine:

So recently (as in since the 30 hour famine at my church), I've been thinking a lot about world hunger and poverty. I feel like I'm finally beginning to comprehend what's really going on everywhere in the world...except here. Because like every year when we're preparing for the 30 hour famine, we just hear over and over "kids die every day of hunger" and "other countries are divided into classes and it's so unfair" and stuff like that. But for some reason, it has really made me think a lot recently.

Like it's just so hypocritical how I can stuff myself on Thanksgiving and say I'm a Christian. Aren't we as Christians supposed to feed the hungry, not just live in our bubble to please ourselves? And I'm just satisfying myself and going beyond what I need in order to be full just because I can. And like every day, I'll look through the cupboards for something to eat, and I'm not even hungry. And whatever I see I usually turn down because "I don't feel like having it right now". If people in, I don't know, Swaziland had all the variety that I had, they would be ecstatic. I just take it all for granted.

And grocery stores. I don't think I realize that I have so much because I'm so used to it. Do I ever wonder when my next meal will come? Do I ever question if the grocery store will be out of food next time I go there?

26,000 children die each day of hunger. That's a child dying every 3 seconds 24/7. And that doesnt't include adults or teenagers. How can I not be thinking about that constantly? Why am I not weeping for those children? Why don't I do something about it?

And just watching television disgusts me. There are all these advertisements for cars and crap like that. So many people around the world couldn't afford that no matter how they tried. And I'm worried that I won't be able to use one of our two cars when I get my license.

And I never wonder how we're going to pay for all our expenses. I know that the money comes from the two and a half solid jobs that my parents have. And we have tons of money leftover for so much extra. What do we mean when we say "money will be tight this month"? We can't go out to eat for a month? So many people around the world live on an incredible amount less than us. What if we just cut some more stuff out? It's so unfair how children in Africa have to go work in the fields at the age of 5. And many girls become prostitutes at 8 or 9 just so they can make money to live. Then that just helps spread HIV.

Then I start thinking: Why was I born in America, the richest country ever? It was only by chance that I happened to be born here. Only 300 million people live here. There were like 200 other countries I could have been born into. I don't think I realize how lucky I am.

So I encourage you guys to think about and pray for the rest of the world. Because we DO live in a big, sheltered bubble. And there's so much bad stuff that we don't even know about in the rest of the world. Realize that we are very blessed indeed and that God will expect us to use the situations he's given us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and tell others about Jesus.

30 Hour Famine Report

As reported in the Oakleaf:

Two weeks ago, 45 junior high and high school students went without food for 30 hours to raise money to fight world hunger, and to fast and pray on behalf of the hungry. During the fast, students engaged in service projects, played games, worshipped through song, and even got in some ballroom dancing!

Including the individual donations collected by students, the Sunday bake sale ran by our junior highers, and the "Get Off My Lawn" fundraiser our high school students came up with, Fair Oaks students raised approximately $2000 that will go to World Vision, the foremost Christian relief agency in the world today.


Our primary service project was a trip to Love-A-Child, a shelter for homeless women and their children in Bay Point. We piled out of our van caravan and were immediately put to work. Within minutes, kids were mixing concrete, painting walls, consolidating and stacking ceramic tiles, and shoveling gravel. Students also cooked and served lunch to the ladies and their kids, all while not eating themselves.


In the latter hours of the fast, students went out into the neighborhood surrounding the church in teams to collect food donations for the Monument Crisis Center. In little over an hour, they gathered three huge boxes full of food.

Students broke the fast with a feast of marinated chicken, tortillas, beans and rice.

Special thanks are due to the many adults who supported our students through donations, prayer, and volunteering their time during our 30 Hour Famine event.

The Politics of Poverty

This kind of stuff frustrates me to no end...

Mbabane

The irony is not lost on Swazis: the population is among the world's poorest, and yet the kingdom is classified as a "middle-income country". How come?

According to Musinga Timothy Bandora, resident coordinator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), "A nation's wealth is measured by several factors; this includes gross national product." In the case of Swaziland, ruled by sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, if the nation's wealth were equally distributed, each Swazi would receive US$100,000.

In per capita income terms, Swaziland ranks somewhere between Armenia and Paraguay, with export earnings based on agriculture and textiles; but, in terms of the share of the national wealth, the richest 10 percent of Swazis control over 50 percent of the country's income, a level of inequality worse than in Brazil or South Africa, and beaten only by Namibia.

"Swaziland isn't a poor nation when you measure its gross domestic product; the problem is that the wealth is being siphoned off by a few people, with the king and the royal family top of the tree. What's left, and it isn't much, goes to the people," said Richard Rooney, associate professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Swaziland.

UNDP figures show that about 70 percent of Swazis live in chronic poverty. A record 60 percent of the population relied on food assistance from the World Food Programme and other aid groups in the past year due to drought, and the country has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate.

The Coordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO), has expressed concern that Swaziland's classification as a middle-income country - despite the desperate need of its people - hinders fund raising for development projects.

"It is not fair that poor people be denied aid because Swaziland is so small that a handful of super-rich skew the income demographics to make the country look richer than it is."

It's Not Theirs

Excerpted from this post by Kim Daniels, a World Racer currently on the field in Thailand:

~She sells her body to make money to feed her child.
~4 people in the church of 100 own a Bible.
~She's sick and dying of AIDS. She has been sexually abused more times than she can count. She is 7. And cares for 4 younger siblings.
~He sleeps in the train station. Starving. While there are hundreds of very edible cows wandering on the streets. But he won't dare touch one... because he believes that cow might just be his uncle, father, or friend.
~Her husband was martyred last year, leaving 40 orphans in her care. Somehow, all 41 of them survive on $10 a day.

I've seen their faces.
I've looked into their eyes.
I heard the unique tones of each voice.
I've smelled their homes.
I've slept in their rat infested rooms.
I've held them as they've wept.
I've tasted the sourness of their food.
I've laid on the dirt under the stars, holding sick, dying orphans who don't speak a word of English, falling in love with them as their bright eyes smile up at me through dark skin.

So its real to me.

And over and over again, I try to innovate new ways to help them. Because over and over again, it reverberates in me: "This is not just THEIR problem."

When a part of my body isn't functioning right, it manifests itself, sometimes through a cough, a sneeze, or weakness. When something isn't in sync with the rest of my parts, we'd say that I'm sick, and begin to do what needs to be done to get me healthy. If my lungs, stomach, or head suffer, the rest of me suffers, too....

When a part of the Body of Christ isn't functioning right, the rest of the Body suffers. When we who CAN do something do nothing, it affects everyone, even though you might not see it externally... eventually, what's going on internally will manifest on the surface.

Their conditions are not just their problem. And I'm not just talking about physical conditions. I'm talking about emotional and spiritual as well. Far too often we all walk around in a cloud of self-consumption, saturated in our present level of depression or happiness, the price of gas and the economy, our relationship issues, or any other situation we can keep our minds busy with.

And we miss the big picture. Starving children in Mozambique aren't actors in a Compassion International infomercial. They really do exist. I've held their boney frames. Women enslaved by the sex trade aren't statics. I've seen the emptiness in their eyes, and heard their unspoken cries for a Friend.

You know you're awake because you want to wake everyone else up, too.
If you don't want to, then maybe you're still sleeping.
Maybe you need to walk straight into something uncomfortable. Something you don't understand. Something that even frightens you a bit.
Until you do, the real world keeps passing you by, while you live in the Matrix.
True, waking up requires much more effort. But I promise you, its worth every tear, drop of sweat, and question that keeps you up at night.

Feeding starving orphans is not just the orphan's problem. Loving the love-starved is not just the love-starved's problem.

And waking sleeping people up is not just the sleeping people's problem.
I've decided its mine, too.

Food for Thought

From Pilgrimage of the Heart, a blog by Jeff Goins:

Bart Campolo: Why Churches Shouldn't Care for the Poor

I got to talk with Bart Campolo on the phone the other day, regarding a project about poverty that I'm doing with Neue, a Relevant Media Group website. I thought you might enjoy a brief excerpt from the interview - a teaser, if you will, dealing with a topic I broach on this blog quite often - church.

In response to my question, "Why should the Church care for the poor?" Bart gave this informal answer:

"You know, I'm going to be honest with you: I don't understand the fixation that most of the people I know that follow Jesus have with the institutional church. I don't really see buildings, denominational structures, and doctrinal statements reflected very much in the life and teaching of Jesus."

He didn't speak with scorn or contempt for institutional church; he just seemed to have a much simpler definition of church than that, a definition many of us are longing to live out. "While lots of really cool things have come from the church, I've also seen so much pain come out of people involved in church and organized stuff. I don't necessarily feel that the church... is the basic unit of our Christian 'society.'"

He thought for a moment, stumbled over himself for a second as his mouth caught up with what his brain wanted to communicate, and then redefined church: "I don't know - maybe a bunch of people hanging out with each other... So, if you mean by 'the church' a collective group of Christians, they should care about the poor for the same reason that I care about the poor, the same reason that God cares about the poor. Because we're human beings; we're made in the image of God. It is our nature to love, to respond."

He thought again for a moment, possibly considering what he had just said and took the challenge a bit deeper: "Why should organized church care for the poor? I don't know," he admitted rather bluntly. "Actually, if you came to my neighborhood, I could give you several reasons why the organized church shouldn't care for the poor. Especially, economically it's not in their interest to care for the poor. It doesn't advance organized religion to care for the poor."

Even though Bart and I were hundreds of miles apart, talking to one another over not-the-greatest cell phone connection, his words moved me. They stung a little, but I knew that it was a good kind of sting. I silently wondered if I was contributing to a Church that didn't have it in its best interest to care for the poor. He continued, comparing the two "churches" he had been talking about - one being the institutional "church" with buildings, structures, and systems, and the other being the true Body of Christ:

"So, why should people who follow Jesus care for the poor? Easy. Why should an organization trying to get a thicker chunk of the American cultural landscape care for the poor? Gosh, I don't know. They probably shouldn't. You don't see the Democratic or Republican parties bending over backwards to give to the poor, because it's not really going to help their movement very much. Those people don't have anything to give, [and] they'll suck a lot of your resources. Organizationally, it's not really a good move."

The interview continued, and Bart went on to talk about how he got started caring for the poor, but the thoughts that he opened the interview with continue to haunt me as I seek to follow a Jesus whose way doesn't always seem safe or comfortable. I asked him if he had any advice for young believers wanting to "do justice," and he said to get together with a group of your friends, move to the inner city, live together, and begin to include the hurting, the broken, and the poor in your circle. He admitted that there wasn't anything too glorious about it, but he said that it was a life full of tremendous reward.

Check out Bart Campolo's website, and visit his blog to read more about him.

The Irresistible Revolution

A few months back, I bought a book by a guy called Shane Claiborne. As his quotes and ideas kept popping up among fellow youth pastor and missionary friends, I figured, I'd like to see what else he has to say.

(Shane also happens to be the young man who, as a speaker at the National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta last fall, controversially devoted all of his speaking time to reading the Sermon on the Mount.)

Well, after letting the book sit on my shelf long enough, I've finally dusted it off and dug in. And, let me say, wow. Just, wow! This is a guy who yearns to live and love like Jesus did. And not in the 'feel spiritual in your Sunday clothes' kind of way, but the 'get down with the poor get your hands dirty' kind of way.

He has a lot to say about poverty, simplicity, and community; the fellowship of interdependence, the suburban isolation of the rich. It's challenging, for sure. But attractive in the sense that he appears to have found something I'm looking for.

I haven't even finished the book yet, but I'm already looking forward to re-reading it. Anybody out there wanna start a book club and discuss it with me?

The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, by Shane Claiborne.