I thought this video gave a really good look at slavery and injustice through the ages. It’s often disheartening when we hear this, but I love the call for repentance at the end. There is hope beyond the evil today…
Find out what we’re doing at LSM to bring hope and healing to child slaves and exploited women. We’d love to have you join us.
(Portions of this post are taken from RELEVANT Magazine, “7 Simple Ways to meet Big Needs” by Lorie Newman.)
Caring for the needy doesn’t have to be overwhelming.
We live in a world with overwhelming humanitarian needs: 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 per day, 1.1 billion people lack access to potable water, 19 million people in America are considered “working poor” and a child dies of hunger every 5 seconds.
With so many needs, where do we even begin? Does helping just one person really matter?
The answer is found in Matthew 25:40, where Jesus says, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
One really does matter. You can help the needy around you in practical, creative ways. Whether it’s across the street, across the church pew or across the world, all of us have the power to reach just one needy person.
I’ve been thinking recently about some conversations I’ve had with people involved with LSM. Again and again, I hear passionate, heartfelt and emotional responses to seeing orphans live as child slaves or being exposed to the horrors women go through in Ethiopia. They understandably hit us on deep levels. They’re injustice at it’s worst.
It’s at times like these that God seems to hit us with the burden to do something. Sometimes people are called in big ways. Sometimes, it’s just that initial burden that gets us to do something.
Jen Hatmaker wrote a blog post at Easter that has stuck with me. You can read the full post here with a lot more details. The point of her story speaks of desperation, pain, and some misunderstandings we often have about Christianity. Let’s consider with Jen the character Bartimaeus.
Bartimaeus: poor, blind, beggar. Probably looked like every homeless person I know. Outcast, shunned from the temple, unclean, discarded in every way – a true societal reject. And here comes Jesus with his entourage, headed to Jerusalem to be “king” (oops, they had a little misunderstanding about what that meant – their bad). Everyone is excited, everyone is cheering. Yay, Jesus! We’re getting our king and we’ll be free!
“Let’s cling to the intertwined threads forming a chord of justice, equality and freedom for our little sisters and best friends around the world.” – Nickole Lim
I hear countless stories of children who are trapped in slavery in Haiti, and know their scars. I see women abused through the effects of poverty and forced into unspeakable things. I have heard of countless situations of pain, abuse and injustice – and it is hard.
“A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” —Joseph Stalin
He’s right you know. The nation shutters when a child like Trayvon Martin is killed, but somehow we don’t really know too much about what’s going on halfway around the world, where the Lord’s Resistance Army has been lose for 26 years wrecking havoc across central Africa. We’re talking WELL OVER a million deaths, child soldiers, mass rape and genocide.
Do you feel the tug like I do? Do you want to make a difference, and not forget about the hurting, the orphan, the widow, the lonely? Does every day life still seep in too easily? Listen to this:
It’s been sitting on my desk for a week untouched – another update letter from another organization and frankly, I, like all of us do so often, set it aside until I “had time.” Too often, they just get thrown away after going unread for a week. But I finally picked it up. It started with James 2:15-16 which brings a scene like this:
“Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?”
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
But words sometimes tell details we’d rather not know – about the reasons for the faraway look in his eyes, or the thing that caused those scars on that little girl’s arms, or the reason why this little boy was left to starve on the streets. Or why this little girl is forced to sell herself. Or why…
Today, we celebrate International Women’s Day.
As I think about the women we serve in Ethiopia, I can only be completely humbled. Too easily, we look at them from a middle-class American view and label these women as tainted, as if they chose their ‘profession’ because they wanted to be there.
