An irresistible contrast

I'm so taken aback, I don't know what to say. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut (or my keyboard silent). After all, who am I to judge? I have my own excesses (to a degree). For instance, I buy a smoothie about once every six months. But when a friend of mine came back from a trip talking about a store he couldn't believe existed, I was -- well, taken aback. And however generous the people are who might frequent this store, I still can't manage to accept its appropriateness. As far as I'm concerned, it's a symbol of why some people in this world suffer without adequate food and water while others party. It's a picture of the excesses of western materialism while western newspapers tabulate how many children are dying in the horn of Africa.

I'm speaking of doll spas. American Girl doll spas. Where parents can take their little girls to have their $100 doll's hair done, or their doll's nails done, or their doll's ears pierced. Here's what else is available: "Our stylists will give her doll a thorough facial scrub to get her clean. And to keep her feeling relaxed, we'll send her home with a pampering set featuring cucumber stickers for her eyes, nail decals, flip-flops, a salon cape, and a faux face mask." And that's not all. There are photo sessions for dolls. And you can take your child and her dolly out for a dining experience as well.

So while bony little black children line up for a pot of porridgy food in some arid refugee camp, we use the extra dollars in our wallets to take our child's toy doll to the spa.

No, I'm under no naive illusion that all the world's poverty problems will simply go away if we send all our discretionary income to relief organizations. Corruption, power struggles and vested interests often get in the way. But I also know that the more we spend on ourselves and our toys, and the less we share with others, the less people will be helped as well.

© 2011 by Ken Peters

Gift-Getting

Every Christmas, I find myself internally-conflicted in a couple of ways. On the one hand, I love giving presents. Turns out that gift-giving is one of my top love-languages. And I'm known in my family for buying gifts that people don't expect but are thrilled to get. Like the Australian leather cattleman's hat I bought for my dad not long ago. I should also mention the diamond ring I bought for Fiona one Christmas.

But on the other hand, I'm not so great at getting presents. Fiona tells me that I'm very difficult to buy for. Either I'm totally distracted by the cost of her buying me something after I spent so much on her, or I'm just not very easily pleased with what people get me. I can be ungrateful, focusing on the gift rather than the giver, wanting them to provide me with the same thrill I just gave them.

I guess that may be why I found the following video of Andy Rooney somewhat amusing...




Add to that the huge distraction of world poverty compared to the extravagant amount of money we as North Americans spend on Christmas presents and I can end up a real grump on Christmas morning. For example, did you know that last year, consumers in the United States spent about 10.7 billion dollars on Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), 6.9 billion dollars on the Saturday before Christmas, and 7.9 billion dollars on Boxing Day? That's over 25 billion bucks spent in three -- count 'em! -- three short days. To put that in perspective, Burundi's GDP (gross domestic product, or the total value of all the goods and services a country produces in one year) is about 3.1 billion dollars. Haiti's GDP is about 6.7 billion dollars. Those figures create some of the internal conflict I feel at Christmastime as we lovingly buy unnecessary items for each other.

Ah, the joy of living in the tension of two truths. I want to remember the poor, but does that mean it's wrong to bless Aunt Nellie with a new set of tea towels?

So that leaves me needing to remember two important lessons as Christmas Day approaches. First, when it comes to gift-giving, gratitude is as important as generosity. Gift-getting is as much an act of love as gift-giving, and no one's act of kindness ought to be spurned, no matter what the circumstances! And secondly, in the same way that God doesn't intend for the needs of the world's poorest people to prevent me from blessing my family and friends at Christmas, I don't believe He wants me to spend so much on them that I'm unable to give anything to help the poor in a meaningful way as well.

Hopefully I can remember those things this Christmas, and then I'll be able to enjoy the gifts I get as much as I enjoy being a blessing to others in the many meaningful ways that God leads me.

© 2010 by Ken Peters

Love that reaches prostitutes

I wanted to go home.  I almost blurted out that it was time to do so even though I wasn't in charge of things this evening.  But Jon continued to steer the van away from his home as he kept a lookout for ladies working the streets of Winnipeg.  He kept saying, let's stop for one more.

My day had begun at 7am and I'd briefly paused for just half a meal before leaving home in the early evening to go help Jon with his work among the prostitutes of Winnipeg.  I was glad to help out, but I was tired and wondered as I drove to Jon's place how long he'd keep things going tonight.  When I got to Jon's, he had just arrived with two lady volunteers who regularly participated in this ministry. We all prayed together, got some supplies ready, and by 9pm, began to cruise the lamplit streets of downtown and north end Winnipeg in Jon's van.

Jon's been doing this with many ministry partners for years.  The strategy is simple:  When you see a prostitute, pull over, a man and a lady quickly hop out of the van carrying a thermos of hot chocolate, a bag of cups and sandwiches and cookies, and a bag of winter gloves and some Gospel literature.  They then cheerfully greet the lady they've stopped for and ask if she'd like some hot chocolate or some food.  Whether she accepts or declines, one always also asks if she wants prayer for anything, and then asks for her name.

As we did this throughout the evening, many ladies said no to the stuff in the bags, and said they were fine for us to pray for them on our own as they cooly or nervously moved away.  Ladies were often willing to give us a name, but were likely giving us a street-name.  A few others just told us in their own unique choice of words to get lost. But a few were very open to brief conversation and prayer.  There'd been a couple like that throughout the evening, and Jon had done a wonderful job of expressing a fatherly love to them for the short time he was able to talk with them.  But it was getting near eleven o'clock and it seemed time to call it a night.

Then Jon announced, "The next lady is for Ken and Melinda.  We'll stop for one more."  But the next couple "one more's" were ladies who quickly declined any offers of kindness, one not even giving a name, and Jon kept saying, "One more!  Ken and Melinda, be ready!"  Suddenly Jon pulled sharply to the curb and insisted, "Go!  Go! Quickly!" (The ladies tend to hurriedly walk away once they realize you're not a vehicle that means business, but not so quickly if a person has already stepped from the van and greeted them.)

Melinda and I rushed out to a young lady in tight fitting pants and a waist-length puffy parka, who I doubt was more than 20 years old, and who looked understandably uncertain of us.  Melinda asked if she'd like a bite to eat and the girl smilingly declined.  "There's home-baked cookies!  How about some cookies?"   Again, the girl politely declined, beginning to back away now.  I pulled a small ziplock bag of cookies out and said, "Hey, I'm sure you'll be glad to have a bite to eat sometime later on.  Here, have some!"  Finally she gave in and stepped forward to shyly receive the cookies.  Her expression seemed soft somehow, rather than the detached or jaded or even irritated responses we'd received from some others.  When asked, she said her name was Teresa (which is not actually the name she gave us).  I asked Teresa if we could pray for her and she said sure.  Melinda dug a little deeper: "Is there anything we could pray for?"  Teresa mentioned her kids, and said she had four of them, 2, 3, 4 and 5 years of age.  Teresa was tentatively beginning to back away when I asked if we could pray with her right there and then.  Though that looked as though it seemed a little scary for her, she also seemed reluctant to say no.  Melinda smiled and extended an arm to invite Teresa closer.  She stepped closer so that Melinda and I could be on either side of her and there I quickly prayed for God to protect her children and herself, and to draw Teresa ever closer to Him. As soon as I said amen, Teresa spontaneously hugged Melinda and thanked us.  We then left Teresa with a piece of literature called "The Father's Love Letter" about God's great love for us.

I don't know what Teresa was thinking as she reached out to hug Melinda, or what she'll think as she nibbles on a cookie or gives them to her kids.  I also don't know what she'll think of "The Father's Love Letter."  But I do know that Teresa appeared genuinely touched by our simple expression of kindness to her -- kindness that I'm certain she's not accustomed to encountering as she awkwardly stands in the dim lights of Winnipeg's streets each night. And I also know that I'm grateful Jon didn't call it quits one person too soon!

As I drove home at the end of a long 16-hour day, I felt excited that in that last encounter God had arranged for the evening, we'd been able to personally pray with someone who had fallen so low that she felt she needed to sell her body to strangers -- and that desperate and degraded beautiful young lady was able to see tonight that the love of God could still reach even her.

As I drove home, the words to the first song I heard on the radio were, "We are standing on holy ground, and I know that there are angels all around.  Let us praise Jesus now; we are standing in His presence on holy ground."

© 2010 by Ken Peters

Pithometer / pith’-ō-mē-tər / (n) : an instrument for assessing pithy remarks. Today’s remark: “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.”

The evangelical church is fond of bashing "religion." And the myriad of pithy phrases used to do so will typically emphasize a relationship with God at the expense of religious practice. It fits into a nice little alliteration as we pit relationship against religion.

And on the surface of things, that sounds fine. Far too many people perceive religious practice as a legitimate way to reach God even though God makes it clear in the Bible that the only way to reach Him is through simply knowing and following Jesus. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). And the Apostle Paul also went to great lengths in many of his New Testament letters to debunk the idea that following some religious code would get a person closer to God. Paul wrote, "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:20).

That being said, I simply do not believe the Bible defines Christianity as an abandonment of religion for the sake of a relationship with God.

By "religion," I mean the outward expression of one's commitment and devotion to God -- such as good works and spiritual practices. And according to the Bible, such religion comes in two forms, one being good and one being bad. (This categorization is based on two of only five passages in the entire Bible that use the words "religion" or "religious," the other three passages using those words in a neutral sense.)

Colossians 2:23 speaks of "self-made religion," and offers strong warnings against those who rely on such a thing to help them to grow mature as a Christian. Notice this is not a warning against "religion," but against "self-made religion." It's a warning against a human-centered approach to God in which we as people think we can define the parameters of our interaction with God. And this is worth speaking against as many people lead others away from God by emphasizing personal spiritual practices and experiences more than God's work of grace on the cross.

But there's another kind of "religion" spoken of in the Bible, and it's not only spoken of as something positive, but as something essential. James 1:27 says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by this world." It is because of this verse (and parallel passages like Matthew 25:31-46) that I wince every time I hear some pithy remark about religion being bad. If we want to make such remarks, then let's be mindful of the few verses in the Bible that offer explicit instruction on this topic. If we're going to dis "religion," then let's be clear that we're dissing "self-made religion," because Scripture is pretty clear that "religion" in the correct sense is important to God.

Of course, it is important that the cart not be placed before the horse. Yes, God most certainly expects us to value the religious acts of helping the poor and of practicing moral purity. But God also expects us to trust in Jesus for the resolve needed to practice such religious deeds and for the forgiveness needed from Him when we fail. Or, one could say that a relationship with Jesus is how we're saved from the consequences of sin in our lives, but religious acts are how we're truly meant to express the salvation we've experienced.

So there's no need to bad-mouth the "pure and undefiled" "religion" that God wants a relationship with us to help us to practice!

© 2009 by Ken Peters

What I can miss in my diligence

I can be pretty diligent in my service to God. So much so that I can end up, for example, working late into the night, strenuously pecking at a keyboard and masterfully maneuvering my mouse to make sure some document I'm creating has the just the right font and everything is properly spaced and formatted. And while there's nothing wrong with striving for excellence, I can't help but wonder if I'm overdoing it just a tad as I read what Jesus said to the pharisees in Luke 11:42. They too were trying to be very diligent in their service to God as they paid their "tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb". They didn't miss much in their commitment to God. They even made sure that their tithe included "every kind of garden herb". They weren't gonna miss one leaf.

But Jesus was concerned with much larger things that the pharisees had missed. He said that they "neglect justice and the love of God." Jesus wasn't opposed to diligence or to giving God a full tithe. In fact, He said in verse 43 that they should have brought their tithes without neglecting the other things. But woe to anyone who thinks that hyper-diligence or accurate tithing (or the perfect font) will be good enough to cancel out a lack of concern for justice or a lack of affection for God. What Jesus is after is a transformed heart rather than what I call selective obedience. Selective obedience strives hard at what I want to do well at for God. But a transformed heart is filled with a motivating concern for the things that concern God, such as my relationship with Him and the plight of the vulnerable around me.

Speaking of vulnerable, that's how I feel as I consider this. Vulnerable to being so busy with picky-little-details that I don't have time for a poor refugee family in need of assistance -- or of simple friendship -- or to have time for a meaningful relationship with the God who called me to the very work I'm so busy with. The solution is simply making sure that what I do throughout each day -- and how much time I spend at what I do -- is in fact precisely what God actually calls me to do. And I know that will always include time spent with the God I love and time spent expressing that love to others.

© 2009 by Ken Peters

When God stirs my heart...

Quite awhile ago I came across this picture in a discarded magazine from 2002. I was struck by it. I studied it carefully and wondered about the circumstances that surrounded it. I wondered if the two children were brother and sister. What were their names? Maybe they had memories of happier days. It appears from what the girl was carrying that they had once had a home. But did they have anything more than each other and the meager possessions she carried? Were their parents alive at the time of the picture? I wondered where they were going and what they were thinking at the time of this photo.

Then I cut it out and put it in my desk drawer and forgot about it (or where I'd gotten it from).

Yesterday I found it as I was cleaning my office. Once again, I was struck by it. But this time I wondered about my life as much as theirs. I have a very comfortable life. I'm well-off and have enough to share. It's not that I don't already share with people in need, but it's just that I'm wondering if I'm meant to do something more with part of my remaining surplus. I'm wondering if I can look at this picture (or the millions like it if I dare to look for them) and then continue my life unfazed -- unchanged -- unconcerned.

I'm looking in the mirror here, not at whoever may be reading this. And I know Ezekiel 16:49 all too well to put this out of my mind. "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy." Consider me fazed. Once again, I'm stirred to adjust some of my spending patterns to ensure that my excess results in someone else's solace.

© 2009 by Ken Peters

There's still 5.7 billion of the rest of us who can share what we have!

I read a headline today that I couldn't ignore. BBC World News reports that "World hunger 'hits one billion'". What kind of headline is that? Is it a scream? Is it an announcement? Or is it a defeated sigh of resignation? One billion people. If you tried to count them all, counting one per second, it would take you over 31 years.

The article states that "One billion people throughout the world suffer from hunger, a figure which has increased by 100 million because of the global financial crisis, says the UN. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said the figure was a record high. Persistently high food prices have also contributed to the hunger crisis." By "hunger," the FAO means food deprivation and undernourishment. They mean ongoing subsistence diets that are deficient in both calories and nourishment.

As I was reading about those one billion undernourished people (plus or minus a few tens of millions), I wondered about the concerns I face here in my little neighbourhood -- like how expensive the cereal aisle is getting at Superstore. And like how the high price of flour is jacking up the prices of things like bagels and the 12-grain breads that are so good for us.


But it doesn't usually take me long to remember how good I've got it in this rich land. After all, I only have to spend about 15% of my income on all the groceries we buy, and there's additional money available for my family to buy restaurant food as well. This article tells me that "For poor consumers, who spend up to 60% of their incomes on staple foods, this [higher food prices] means a strong reduction in their effective purchasing power". When food prices go up for those one billion people who spend so much of their income on food, there's not much wiggle room when they're only making one or two dollars a day.


Are you still reading? If so, let's agree to spend less time worrying about the travesty of how much it now costs us to buy all those bags of groceries we bring home, and let's determine to do something to put food in the mouths of some of those one billion people who have never known the abundance we enjoy!

© 2009 by Ken Peters

Staggering data regarding real people

Here's some perspective. At the time of writing this entry, the global stat-counter at the bottom of this page showed that around the world, about 22,515,000 people had died thus far in 2009. Not included in that number is 15, 354,000 babies who have been killed by abortion thus far in 2009.

That's right. Take 68% of the number of total global deaths that have occurred this year so far, and you'll have the number of babies who have been killed this year before they were even born.
Compare that to other causes of death that we take seriously enough to exert great energy trying to solve. At this time, about 2,875,000 have died of cancer in 2009, 1,227,000 have died of AIDS, 620,000 from TB, 389,000 from diabetes, 67,000 due to war. And while all that has been happening, 15 million, 354 thousand babies have been killed by abortion.

Why can't people see that a baby is a baby even before it's born? Why has this gone on so long with the permission of politicians and the help of health professionals? The global numbers are staggering.

© 2009 by Ken Peters

Three Simple Steps

Why have I been going on and on about numbers and consumerism and more numbers? C’mon! Lighten up, right? What’s so important about how many cups we use as a society anyway? From all those pictures in my previous posting, one might think that all I’m concerned about is how much ends up in our landfills. Though that might be a valid concern, it’s not something I think about much.

I don’t get stirred up about consumerism for ecological reasons. In fact, my primary concern about consumerism isn’t even about excess. That’s because the Bible isn’t against wealth. In fact, it says that wealth is from God. My primary concern about consumerism is about needs – desperate needs. We as Westerners have so much to share, and can easily do so with little impact on our comfortable Western lifestyles. And if we actually do want to impact our lifestyles, there are people in this world who truly need the help we can offer.

All it takes is a little investigating, a little thought, and then a decision or two.

Investigating is easy. For example, just try doing a Google search on the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN has recently declared it to be the worst place in the world to be a child. If you really want to know, keep reading and you’ll discover that earlier this year, a UNICEF report declared that the DRC was one of 11 countries where 20% of children die before the age of five. According to other news clips you’ll find, at the beginning of 2008, 45,000 people were dying each month, nearly half of them children, and the fighting has recently intensified!

If you want to know details, the Guardian in the UK reported that “The International Rescue Committee said preventable diseases and starvation aggravated by conflict have claimed 5.4 million lives since the beginning of the second Congo war in 1998, equivalent to the population of Denmark. Although the war officially ended in 2002, malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition continue to claim thousands of lives. The study of 14,000 households across Congo between January 2006 and April 2007 found that nearly half of all the deaths were of children under the age of five, who make up only 19% of the population.” This is why many people don’t take this first step – the truth is too awful to know, the images too hard to see.

But if you get that far, the next thing you’ll want to investigate is who’s offering meaningful help? I tend to check Samaritan’s Purse first, and I generally find that they’re involved in the area I’m concerned about. But another Google search will reveal many agencies helping in any significant crisis.

If you’ve taken the time to investigate a situation like that, you’re already way ahead of your average Western consumer. Way to go! Now step 2 is to simply think a little. Think about whether you want to give once in awhile to needs like these, or on a routine basis. If you only want to do it once in awhile, just think about how much you can spare right now – how much money do you have to give? That’s what most people do. They give occasionally as situations arise. Giving routinely is simply unaffordable to many because their budget is maxed out with too many other monthly bills and payments.

This is where my concerns with consumerism arise, and this is where it’s worth thinking about what we can do without in order to give more generously to desperately needy people. It’s this kind of regular giving that makes a huge difference to those trying to feed the hungry, but it’s also the kind that requires sacrifice from a people who are used to having what they want when they want it.

And that brings us to step 3: a decision or two. What regular expense will I give up so that I can afford to give regularly to those who need my help? Will it be a few of those 410,000 coffee cups that are used every 15 minutes? Or will it be a few of those 2 million plastic beverage bottles that are used every 5 minutes? Once you get used to thinking this way, you may consider giving up things of even more value in your life, like instead of buying as many CDs or DVDs, I’ll give to others instead. Or maybe, spend less on sports or leisure activities. For us, this is a primary reason we gave up cable TV at our house.

The challenge for us all is to match our Western lifestyles with the compassion and convictions of our hearts. What can you do? Investigate. Think a little about your consumer lifestyle. Then, make a decision or two. If we all do that, those three simple steps will make a huge difference in a world of need!

© 2009 by Ken Peters

The Value of Numbers

Numbers can be numbing. But we’re battered with them everyday. Polls and percentages, stats and stocks, discounts and death tolls – it’s all coming at us in every form of media available. It’s no wonder people switch off when they hear the latest estimates of a famine or a bomb blast. It’s the downside of an IT culture in which so much information is available that we can’t possibly absorb it all, let alone give a considered response.

And yet I think there’s value in knowing what’s going on. As a Christian who believes that Christ has called His people to share the Gospel with every people group on the planet, I find numbers helpful. I think it’s worth knowing that there are about 16,314 people groups in the world and that about 6,739 of those are still considered unreached with the Gospel (that’s about 41.3%). Now depending on whether you’re a glass half-full or glass half-empty person, you could find that encouraging – about 59% of the world’s ethnic groups have a viable Christian church already among them, and essentially two-thirds of those groups are considered primarily Christian! In fact, of the world’s 236 countries, 169 (or 72%) are Christian-majority countries. And isn’t it encouraging to know that over 95% of the world’s population has the Bible, Bible-portions, the Jesus film, gospel radio, or gospel recordings available in their language (4,334 out of 6,516 languages)?

I could throw around so many more numbers that you’d have to be a real stats junkie to keep reading. If you want more like that, Joshua Project is a great place to go. But it doesn’t take long before all those numbers begin to feel overwhelming – or like some kind of artificial reality. After all, a number doesn’t move us the way a real person does. A number is data that informs our mind, but a face is a neighbor that touches our heart. That’s why it is known among aid agencies that the calamities that draw the television cameras will get far more dollars than more serious tragedies that are merely reported in print.

Though I understand why this would be, I still believe that numbers have great value in helping us to understand the state of the world. Do you know how many people are on this planet? Do you care to know how many of those people still have no Christian witness living among them? Or do you want to know how many people in this modern world still live without safe drinking water, or how many kids in Sudan have no access to a school? Such numbers shouldn’t be used to appeal to a sense of guilt, but rather to stir our interest. Figures can feed passions, and depending on what our passions are, some numbers will interest us more than others. But the point is, know what God has given you passion for and know the numbers that will feed that passion. Don’t go numb to all the numbers coming at you just because there are so many. Look for the ones that matter to you. That’s why I’ve inserted a population counter just above the news headlines in the left margin of this blog. And that’s why you’ll also find a live stat-counter regarding all kinds of concerns at the bottom of this blog (just scroll down to view it).

But the million dollar question is, What good are such numbers – even the ones that pertain to our passions – if we aren’t going to do anything about them? The danger, of course, is that if all we do is read the data and do nothing with it, we will become bloated with facts and calloused to the plights of the people they represent. We’ve got to act! Ezekiel 16:49 says that the sin of God’s people was that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” I live in a land of physical and spiritual abundance, and that leaves me feeling vulnerable to the same thing being said of me! And it is for that reason that numbers matter to me. Numbers like how many are in need, how many are unreached, how much money do I earn, how much can I share? I can’t respond to all the numbers – and nor am I expected to – but I can do something about the numbers that tally the things God has given me passion for. And that is why there is great value in numbers.

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Back to Sudan (after nearly 21 years)

It’s been over 20 years since I lived in a remote desert village of northern Sudan for a year. It was a life-changing experience that left me with many wonderful memories that have softened the rough edges of the challenges I faced. Sudan was then at war with itself, and though the north and the south are no longer at war, Sudan still seems as unstable now as it was then. So why then – now that I’m a husband and a father – would I plan to go to southern Sudan in this present climate of tension and uncertainty? I suppose another question I could ask is, having been invited to consider going, how serious do the needs need to be in southern Sudan before I'm prepared to leave my safe and affluent environment to go and help?

I and two other people from our church plan to travel to southern Sudan about a month from now, and plan to spend almost two weeks ministering there. One of our threesome is originally from southern Sudan and has not been back for 17 years, and due to the war, has been separated from his family for 25 years. And though he is from a family of 15 siblings, only two of his siblings are still alive today. We plan to travel to his home town where he will most certainly be welcomed back with many tears and great celebration!

While we are there, it is our desire to minister to the local Christians in any way we can. We will spend time in the Word with them and will pray with them, and we hope to be an encouragement to a church that has been through great pain in the past couple decades.

In 2005, a peace agreement ended 21 years of fighting between the north and the south of Sudan. It had been Africa’s longest civil war, devastating the entire region of southern Sudan, and leaving two million people killed, over four million people internally displaced and half a million refugees. Christians experienced significant adversity throughout this war, and yet now is an opportune time for the Church outside of Sudan to help Sudan’s Christians be the light they’re meant to be among their own people.

What else could we possibly do to help? That remains to be seen.

As you can imagine, the task of rebuilding after such a long and terrible war is tremendous. Between one and two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have already returned to their home towns since the peace agreement was reached and many more are expected to follow. But in the midst of limited resources and opportunities, tensions between the returnees and those who had remained are very real. Many homes and herds have been destroyed, schools and clinics are unable to cope with the numbers, and the cost of food as well as basic building materials is continually rising. This has left many thousands of people living in the bush or in primitive camps around the towns they returned to, with minimal aid or no aid at all to help them. There is an urgent need for clean water supplies, food, housing materials and medical care. And yet humanitarian aid has decreased of late because some aid agencies have moved on after the cessation of armed conflict in southern Sudan.

In addition to such pressing needs, education is neglected. It is estimated that three-quarters of the adults in southern Sudan are illiterate and only about 22% of an estimated 2.2 million school-age children are enrolled in schools. However, a third of these schools are simply wooden benches under a tree and many of the teachers lack proper training or adequate curriculum. We’re asking the Lord to guide and direct us to see how we may be able to partner with a church in Uganda to help with education in the area of southern Sudan we will be visiting. This could include meals and clothes, as well as a classroom and a teacher for children in need.

So why would I go to southern Sudan in the present climate of tension and uncertainty? My concern is that if God’s people were to stay away in such times, how would the people of southern Sudan know the love and light of Christ when they most need it? It’s at such times that I see many secular agencies helping people. So how can I as God’s child – who has my heavenly Father to help me – not be prepared to also help?

That is why I am planning to go to southern Sudan this August. We as a team would appreciate your prayers.

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Seeking God in a Way that Pleases Him (church bulletin cover)

God is certainly not impressed with outward shows of devotion when our hearts are not actually seeking Him. I can read my Bible, attend special Saturday night worship meetings and write this devotional, and my heart can still be far from God, leaving none of the above pleasing to God or of any benefit to anyone. The prophet Amos addressed this when he wrote that God actually hated his people’s festivals and assemblies and sacrifices (Amos 5:21-22). Even their songs were as noise to God (5:23). Are my songs or my blog postings noise to God? Amos offers some appreciated insight into how to avoid this. Amos was speaking to a people who loved the outward stuff – their rituals and offerings (4:5), but whose hearts were far from God (4:11). So he brought the word of the LORD to them: “Seek Me that you may live” (5:4). The sort of seeking spoken of here is about what I do between the rituals so that the outward things are an expression of the genuine life I have in God. “Seek Me” can be done anytime, all the time – it’s the posture of one who is eager for God, not just interested in attending spiritual meetings.

But Amos was also urging God’s people to a better kind of outward expression in their devotion to God. Rather than stressing religious rituals and gatherings, which typically only impact the individuals in attendance, Amos stressed deeds that impacted others for good. He spoke of justice and righteousness (5:24). He said to “Hate evil, love good, and establish justice” (5:15). That is how to avoid singing “noisy” songs to God (5:23)! This isn’t a message exhorting us to stop singing, or even to avoid meeting together. It’s about what direction I’m facing as I sing – toward God or self? And it’s about what I do between the meetings – pursue righteousness or personal gain? What I choose could mean the difference between “Seek Me that you may live” (5:4) and “Prepare to meet your God!” (4:12).

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Clean Water is meant for Everyone

Amid the myriad of very real physical needs we are aware of in this world, why would safe drinking water be the need one chooses to financially help with? I believe the reason is that safe water goes beyond saving lives — it improves communities. And when there’s water for everyone, it even strengthens nations! When safe, clean water is provided as a part of proper community development programs, it has the potential to improve the health of a community to such a degree that people are able to work or attend school more consistently, uninterrupted by diseases caused by unsafe water. This means that entire communities will have greater opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty that prevents them from pursuing a more hopeful future. In this way, safe, clean water releases hope as well as quenching thirst.

The situation is critical. As many as 1 billion people in the world must drink unsafe drinking water (ISERP, Columbia University, Spring 2005). Diarrhea, which is caused by unclean water and by inadequate sanitation 88% of the time (WHO, World Health Report 2002), is responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.8 million people worldwide each year, 1.6 million (90%) of which are children under five – even though children under 5 constitute just 10% of the world’s population (World Resources Institute, EarthTrends, September 2005)! That’s approximately 4,400 children dying from a preventable disease everyday... one child every 20 seconds.

Good health is among the most valuable assets the poor possess, but it’s the poor who suffer the most health problems associated with unsafe water. Those earning less than $1/day —which happens to be about 1.1 billion people (World Resources Institute, EarthTrends, December 2005) – are nearly 10 times more likely to have health problems related to unsafe water than those earning a mere $2/day in much of the developing world. And experts estimate that nearly half (46%) of workplace productivity lost to ill health in the developing world is attributable to unsafe water and hygiene (World Resources Institute, EarthTrends, September 2005). “Having a household member fall ill can destroy a poor family’s standard of living. Household and village-level studies show that the illness of a key income-earner is one of the leading causes of a household's decline into abiding poverty... The immediate loss of income is only the start: health bills can mount quickly and create an urgent need for cash, and since the poor possess few liquid assets that can be used for such emergencies, they may have to sell land or items central to sustaining their livelihoods… One common coping strategy is to pull children out of school and send them to work, depriving them of training they will need in the future to keep themselves out of poverty” (World Resources Institute, EarthTrends, September 2005).

It’s encouraging to know though, that health improvements “from a 50% reduction in the number of people without access to safe drinking water would result in an extra 272 million school attendance days and 320 million productive work days each year in the developing world – resulting in major economic and social benefits” (WHO UNICEF, 2005 (from “Turn on the Tap” literature, Samaritan’s Purse)).

Many relief and community development agencies are working with water filter technology that is sustainable in the developing world, and they are gradually giving more and more people access to safe drinking water. They simply need the funds to continue this work. One that I heartily recommend is Samaritan's Purse and their "Turn on the Tap" program.

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Giving like we just can’t help it!

I don’t write letters to newspaper editors very often, but the last few times I’ve done so, it’s been in response to articles that highlight our society’s commitment to the high life while so many desperately poor people suffer all around us. I wrote such a letter to the National Post in response to an article in Friday’s paper entitled, “The problem with the right to food.” The article was a reaction to the UN declaring that because having food is "a right," wealthy nations are obligated to help the poor. I felt that the writer's reaction to this declaration was very much a “take care of yourselves” kind of attitude toward the people of the two-thirds world. The letter I wrote to the Post ended up being one of the “Letters of the Day” in Saturday’s paper, though it was somewhat abbreviated. Here is what I wrote in full…

Dear Editor,
In Karen Selick’s case against the “right to food,” she seems more concerned about the right for the wealthy well-fed West to have the right to “rest, leisure and reasonable limitation of working hours” than about the fact that, as you also reported, six million children under the age of five in Ethiopia alone are presently at risk of acute malnutrition. This is the problem with a culture obsessed with affluence – we’re so concerned about what we might have to go without while trying to think as little as possible about those who might need it more. If insisting on the “right to food” is so problematic to Ms. Selick, then why not change the focus to the right to give? We have incredible resources in North America. We consume far more than any other part of the world to sustain our lifestyles, and my salary actually puts me in the top 2% of the world’s wage earners even though my gross salary is less than $50,000. My feeling is that, as a resident of this planet, with great abundance comes great responsibility. Whatever rights to food that the starving masses of the world have or don’t have, I believe that we have a responsibility, and the right, to care about their plight. So let’s not get distracted by any “one-world socialism” conspiracies while literally millions are dying of starvation while we pile our plates high with food everyday.
Ken Peters, Winnipeg, MB

The Bible is clear that everyone has a responsibility to look out for the interests of the poor: Government leaders, spiritual leaders, God’s people, citizens of the world, everyone. Even a godless city like Sodom was judged for having “abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy” (Ezek. 16:49). If God expected that of Sodom, all the more reason that God’s people should be concerned about the poor. And when someone writes something for all of Canada to read, saying that it’s wrong to tell someone that they have to give up some of their food just because someone without food feels they have a right to eat, I want to stand up and shout – Did we do something to deserve to be born in this affluent nation? Is the privilege we enjoy purely a result of our own hard work or is it a gift from God? And what did those starving, dying children in Burma or Ethiopia or Haiti do to deserve their low, impoverished place in this world? If we have abundance, it’s by the grace of God. And if we don't like someone telling us that because they feel someone has a right to something we have in abundance, we have to give some to them, then what do we think of God telling us that? I guess the question for the Christian then is -- Is this something that God tells us that we must do, or is it something He'd just kind of like us to do?

There’s no shortage of Biblical support for being generous toward the poor. My feeling is that it’s simply not optional. God expects it of us. He provides grace and resources to us so that we can obey Him in this. And when God’s people choose to give generously and sacrificially the way God wants us to, we become extremely bright lights amidst the desperate neediness of this world.

© 2008 by Ken Peters

Justice, Kindness and Humility

I don’t know about you, but I feel kind of overwhelmed by the news these days. A cyclone in Myanmar, an earthquake in China, tens of thousands of people killed – probably over 100,000 before all is said and done. And these are just the most devastating disasters being reported. On CNN.com, the article on China’s earthquake contains a video link that says, “Watch workers dig out the body of small child at the site of a collapsed school in China.” My reaction is, “No, I’m sorry, but I don’t I don’t want to watch that. I will not watch it.” And like so many others, I want to shield myself from the pain.

But God calls us to something nobler than that. We as God’s people should not be shielding our eyes from the needs of the nations. Certainly we must pray – pray for help to come quickly and for lives to be saved. That’s good, but if we stop there, we fall short. When people are suffering, God calls His people to action. “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”” (Micah 6:8). Justice, kindness, humility. This requirement was not aimed at some specialized band of aid workers in the Israel of Micah’s day. It was spoken to God’s people in general. And Jesus didn’t hesitate to reinforce it. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus describes the difference between those who go to heaven and those who go to hell as being how they responded to the poor. In other words, helping the needy is still required of God’s people.

Fast-forward to today, and it’s easy to see that North American Christians have been blessed with enormous resources. Personally, this sobers me. And it leaves me periodically asking myself: As one of the richest people on the planet (my family income level places me in the top 1%), what am I doing with the abundant wealth God has given me? Am I sharing it when I hear that the destitute are experiencing such catastrophes? My assumption in this is that the abundance God has given me is for others beside me and my own. It’s for more than my CDs and DVDs, my Starbucks and my stereos, my internet shopping and my impulse purchases. If I need to change my lifestyle so that I’ve got resources to share, I’d better figure that out, for God expects obedience in this. And as we can become conduits of the blessings God has given us, then the world will surely see “justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” from the people of God (Amos 5:24).

I do understand that nobody can afford to make a meaningful donation to help with every catastrophe that happens in this world. But if we decide in our hearts to be generous, and listen for God’s Spirit to prompt us, we will provide justice and kindness where it is needed and God will bless us for our obedience (Isaiah 58:10-12).

© 2008 by Ken Peters

A Worship that's Sincere (church bulletin cover)

They sought God. I seek God. They were eager to know God’s ways. I am too. They asked God for just decisions and delighted in His nearness, and I hope the same could be said of me. But God strongly rebukes the people who are described in this way in Isaiah 58:2. Why?

What was so wrong that God would be that upset with a people who seemed so passionate for Him? Isaiah 58 goes on to point out what God knew was missing in the lives of these seemingly devout people. In this passage, God is graciously providing us the clues we so desperately need for knowing if our delight in God and our desire to seek Him are sincere. And the main issue? How God’s people responded to the needs of people around them.

I’m extremely challenged by how Isaiah 58 helps me to know if my devotion to the Lord is truly from my heart. Verse 7 asks if we “share [our] food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, [do you] clothe him…?” I know I can’t help everyone in that kind of need, but am I consistently doing anything to help with such needs? The way for me to ensure that my relationship with God is sincere is to be sure that my love for God is revealed in my love for my neighbour—and particularly the poor. 1 John 3:17-19 agrees as John declares that it is by putting our love for the needy into action that we can assure our hearts before God and know that we are of the truth.

For this to be the case requires some careful intentionality. I need to be on the lookout regarding needs that God exposes me to in my everyday life. God help each of us to see the needs around us and to respond appropriately! And I trust that Love Winnipeg and Caring for the Core will be valuable incentives for those of us who could use a little help growing in this area of regularly responding to the needs of people living right here in the city of Winnipeg!

© 2008 by Ken Peters