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A sacred opportunity awaits us. We have the privilege of pouring out our lives for others, just as Christ did for us. If you have entered into a covenant with the King of all kings, this life is no longer about you. Your body is meant to be a living sacrifice for Him. As it says in Ephesians 2:10, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” God has an amazing work prepared for you. And when you begin taking steps toward serving the least, and prayerfully seeking His guidance and direction, He will be more than faithful to show you where, when, how and who you are meant to serve. Last issue, we looked at practical ways to serve orphans and foster care children around the world. This month, I would like to explore other needs around the world, and the practical things we can do to help meet them. . .
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GIVE.
When you consider that the amount of money most of us spend at Starbucks each month can feed a starving child for that same amount of time, it makes you stop and re-evaluate where your money is going. Just as we will be accountable to God for every idle word we speak, we will be accountable for every careless dime we spend. (Matt 12:36) There is a global food crisis going on around the world. Emergency help is needed, or countless more will die. According to Compassion International, $39 will sustain an entire family for a month. $79 will sustain two families. Consider giving sacrificially to the poor of the world. Are there comforts you can go without in order to meet this urgent need? Sponsor a child, sponsor a family, support organizations that are meeting their needs. There are loads of ministries to the poor in desperate need of funding. Visit these websites to learn more:
GO. (serve the poor around the world)
If you listen to Jackie Pullenger’s message Lord Give Me Your Heart, you will be challenged to the core with the call to go – to get out of your comfort zone and go to the poorest and neediest people on earth. The poor of the world do not just need Americans to throw money at them – they need us to go to them, to live among them, to love them, serve them, give to them, and meet their practical and spiritual needs.
Jackie talked about going to live in the Walled City of Hong Kong, China among the most impoverished and destitute people in the world. It took her nearly 20 years to gain their trust. They had seen Americans and Europeans come and go – usually got off their air-conditioned airplanes, wearing designer clothes, staying in fancy hotels, and coming to the Walled City for a few hours a day to play their guitar and sing worship songs and hand out tracks. After a week, they would leave and fly back to their comfortable lives back home. And the people of the Walled City said to Jackie, “They leave, but we are still here. Those Americans came only to ease their own conscience. They did not meet any of our needs. They still have everything, and we have nothing. What impact do they expect to make?” Jackie was able to reach their souls with the message of Christ because she didn’t place herself above them. She lived in the Walled City with them. She shared her house, her food, even her own bedroom with those in need.
To truly reach the poor with the hope of the Gospel, we have to be willing to live among them and sacrifice for them, just as Jesus did for us. Are we willing to give up our lives for them?
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Not everyone is called to spend 20 years living in the Walled City, but we are certainly called to more than a short-term feel-good mission trip once every two years. Pray about where God wants you to go to reach the poor, whether it is for a season or for the rest of your life. Read inspiring stories of women who answered God’s called to go such as:
Lottie Moon
Mary Slessor
Lydia Prince
Jackie Pullenger
Gladys Alyward
Amy Carmichael
GO. (serve the poor in America)
While the poor in America aren’t usually as destitute as the poor around the world, there are still countless families in this country who are struggling with the basics of daily life, such as food, shelter and clothing. Visit your local rescue mission or homeless shelter to learn about opportunities in your area. You can also get involved with inner-city churches in your area to link with poor families in need of assistance. Some other great resources are:
Click on “ways to help” and you will be directed to volunteer opportunities all across the country.
WAYS TO HELP RESCUE SLAVES
I loved the movie Amazing Grace about the life of William Wilberforce – a man who labored tirelessly to end the slave trade in the late 1700’s. His dream was finally realized in 1807 when the Slave Trade Act was passed, and England’s slave trade was abolished. I left the movie wishing that I had such a noble cause to give my life to. And then I learned that today, human slavery still exists. In fact, it is even higher than in the days of William Wilberforce – higher than it has ever been throughout all of world history in fact.
There are 27 million slaves in the world today, and millions more exploited children. Countless men, women and children exploited for sex slavery or forced-labor. Approximately 80 percent are women and at least 50 percent are children.
WAYS TO HELP THE POOR
About 25,000 people die everyday from hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. That’s one person every three and a half seconds. At www.poverty.com you can see a world map that details where hunger-deaths are happening currently around the world, and even see names and photos of people who have died in the past hour from poverty and starvation (don’t worry, it’s not morbid - the photos shown are from when they were alive.) It is truly heartbreaking, and I find that I have a hard time looking at this website for too long, because of the sick knot that forms in my stomach as I see these precious faces of lives that have wasted away from poverty.
Amy Carmichael wrote,
Far off, sorrowful things are perhaps endurable. It is always possible to disbelieve them.
John Donne said,
Ignorance is not only the drowsiness, the silliness, but the wickedness of the soul. The cruelest man alive could not sit at his feast unless he sat blindfolded.
I fear that all too many of us, myself included, have spent years sitting blindfolded at our own feasts, enjoying the pleasures and comforts of plenty while countless lives around the world waste away from hunger and poverty. Let us no longer endure sorrowful things because they are so far away and see so hard to believe. As God’s set-apart young women, we are called to open our eyes to the need around the world – and not only to open our eyes, but to make ourselves available to be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and justice for the poor. (See Job 29)
When Annie returned from Haiti, she told us about children with bloated bellies and discolored hair from lack of nutrition. The average Haitian child eats a meal once every three days. Many eat dirt mixed with flour and water to fill the ache in their bellies. Haiti has the highest infant mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. While Annie was there, thirty parents came to the orphanage to relinquish their children for adoption in order to preserve their lives. The parents simply could not feed their children, so they were forced to give them up. It broke Annie’s heart to take photographs of parents who were forcing their kids to smile for the camera in hopes that some American family would take interest in them and give them a chance to survive.
It is estimated that there are 246 million exploited children aged between 5 and 17 involved in debt bondage, forced recruitment for armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, the illegal drug trade, the illegal arms trade and other illicit activities around the world.
Girls trapped in sex slavery are lured by phony promises of work, marriage, educational advances or a better life - jobs that traffickers turn into the nightmare of prostitution without exit. Women and girls, some as young as seven, are tortured, beaten and repeatedly raped into submission. Entrapment is perpetuated by torture, beatings, starvation, death threats to victims or loved ones, and confiscation of travel/identification documents.
Here is what the Salvation Army says about the current slavery crisis:
Each year traffickers supply millions of human beings for labor exploitation in settings such as brick kilns, sweatshops, chicken farms, cocoa plantations, mines, fisheries, rock quarries, or for compulsory participation in public works or military service, as well as a variety of other settings. Countless others, predominately women and female children, but also boys, are trafficked into the commercial sex industry where they are used in forms of commercial sexual exploitation like prostitution, pornography, and nude dancing. Some are sold as "brides." Trafficking in persons is frequently referred to as modern-day slavery. Slavery is an apt analogy that shocks and challenges us. Americans in particular are moved by this comparison. To us, slavery is a sordid, indelible stain on our national heritage, but nevertheless it is an evil most believe we conquered and relegated to the history books. However, news media accounts, on-the-ground intelligence from nongovernmental organizations, and reports from agencies the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, create a different picture. They reveal a hideous yet inescapable truth: slavery is alive.
One girl I read about was kidnapped by sex traffickers in Brazil when she was nine years old. She was held at a brothel in a remote part of the Amazon, forced to be a prostitute and obey the whims of corrupt business-men and tourists. When she tried to escape, she was caught and tied to the back of a truck by her arms and drug through back alleys and dirt roads until she nearly died. I read about other girls, as young as five years old, who’s virginity was “auctioned” away to the highest bidder. By the time these girls reach their teen years, they are wasting away from sexual disease and have lost their value to the sex industry. Most are turned out onto the streets to die.
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I recently saw a documentary in which an undercover reporter posed as a sex tourist in Cambodia and encountered a back-alley brothel in which dozens of six, seven and eight year old girls were available for sex, for the price of $30 US dollars.
Even in the U.S. human trafficking is rampant. The State Department estimates that 75,000 women and children are illegally brought into the U.S. annually for forced prostitution and other forms of slave labor. They estimate that fifty percent of them are trafficked for sexual exploitation.
The more you learn about this issue, the less you can keep quiet. Slaves around the world are in desperate need of advocates. With the help of God, we can make an eternal impact in their lives, and fulfill the call of Isaiah 58 to let the oppressed go free. Here are some ways to begin:
VISIT. these websites to become aware of the human trafficking issue around the world:
www.salvationarmyusa.org (click on “fight human trafficking)
WATCH. the Following Videos/Documentaries about Human Slavery:
Sex Slavery in Cambodia:
http://www.ijm.org/video/viewcategory
A Child Prostitute’s Story:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEclmPZZKh8&feature=related
GET CONNECTED. with Anti-Trafficking Ministries to learn about ways you can help:
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I recently watched a documentary about impoverished children in Kenya, called Glue Boys. Thousands of children sleep on the street, scavenge trash bins for scraps of food, and inhale chemical solvents to ease their hunger pains. Many of these kids die in their teen years or sooner, if not from starvation and disease, from poisoning their body with glue-sniffing.
Last year, I read about the thousands of street children in South America that live on garbage dumps and eat buzzards and dead dogs to survive. Tears of horror and despair ran down my face because I felt helpless to rescue them.
But with God, we are far from helpless! His heart is close to poor people of the earth. And He will be with us if we stand for them. Isaiah 58 says,
Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
This is God’s call upon each of us that proclaims to know Him. If we want to walk with Him, we cannot ignore the cries of the poor.
Here are some practical ways to get started being His hands and feet to them:
VISIT.
Visit websites to help expand your awareness of poverty around the world. Some of my favorites are:
LISTEN.
Jackie Pullinger’s messages on the poor, found at www.sermonindex.net. If you listen with your heart and allow God’s Spirit to speak to you, your life will never be the same. Two of my favorites are Lord Give Me Your Heart and God Uses the Foolish Things.
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OTHER PEOPLE IN NEED OF YOUR HELP
THE IMPRISONED. I was in prison, and you came to me. (Matt 25:36)
Voice of the Martyrs, a ministry that reaches persecuted Christians around the world, says this about the current state of affairs:
In more than 40 nations around the world today Christians are being persecuted for their faith. In some of these nations it is illegal to own a Bible, to share your faith Christ, change your faith or teach your children about Jesus. Those who boldly follow Christ—in spite of government edict or radical opposition—can face harassment, arrest, torture and even death. Yet Christians continue to meet for worship and to witness for Christ, and the church in restricted nations is growing.
This widespread persecution results in thousands of believers imprisoned for their faith. Paul says that we are to remember brothers and sisters in chains, “as if we are bound with them.” (Heb 13:3) You can become an advocate for imprisoned Christians around the world by:
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-praying for the persecuted and imprisoned Christians about the worlD
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-writing words of encouragement to let them know they are not forgotten
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-contacting government officials to ask for their release
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-giving money to support the prisoner’s families, often left with few resources and barely able to survive
Visit www.prisoneralert.com to find many practical ways to become an advocated for those imprisoned for their faith.
You can also reach out to prisoners in the United States. Often these men and women have come to the end of their rope, and are eager and willing to receive the message of the Gospel. They need a listening ear, a word of encouragement, and to know that hope is not lost for them. Learn more about prison ministry in your area by visiting the following websites:
THE SICK. I was sick, and you visited me (Matt 25:36)
One of the most forgotten groups of people in our country are the elderly; left to spend the final years of their lives alone in a nursing home, wasting away the hours in front of the television. Local nursing homes are delighted to have volunteers to visit the residents, talk with them, read to them, or play games with them. Just spending a few hours a week can bring much-need light into their lives. And what a great opportunity to witness to them about the hope of eternity in the final weeks, months, or years of their lives.
Local communities often have homes and organizations for disabled people. Volunteer to be a friend to a disabled person; to take them on outings or just get together and let them know that they have value.
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THE FOREIGNER. I was a stranger and you took Me in (Matt 25:35)
14, 047, 300 men, women and children in the world today are forced to be refugees – displaced, impoverished, their very lives endangered. Hundreds of thousands flee to the U.S. for safety. Sadly, many face a bleak reality once they are here. Without language, skills or resources, they struggle to make ends meet, and many are unable to get their feet under them. They are required to apply for immigration within the first year of being in the U.S., but few of them have the knowledge or skills to go through the process. Refugees in the United States are the ultimate example of the “stranger in the land” that God refers to all throughout Scripture, asking us to remember them and meet their needs. Refugees are in desperate need of practical assistance, encouragement and support. For a more complete look at the issues refugees are facing, visit www.refugees.org or www.unhcr.org or www.partnerworld.org.
Every city in America that hosts refugees has a refugee resettlement service. You do a quick Google search to find out information about one near you, contact them, and ask how you can get involved. This agency can also direct you to other organizations that are working with refugees.
More than anything refugees who have come to America need mentors, who will take personal interest in them. Consider "adopting" one refugee family in your local city and take them grocery shopping, to doctor's appointments and visit their homes to help them up to set up a check book, help them understand their mail, etc. Refugees come from fleeing genocide in many circumstances, to getting thrown into a refugee camp where they live in utter poverty and desolation. Coming to America causes drastic culture shock, which causes high percentages of depression and mental illness as well as homelessness. When a relationship is established with refugees, it provides incredible hope and stability, and gives you a great opportunity to share the Gospel.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Remember, you don’t need to be super-qualified or have everything figured out ahead of time in order to live a poured-out life. You just need a heart fully surrendered to the One who does. Pray, seek, and approach each day with a ready and willing heart. He will be more than faithful to guide and direct your steps!
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