Boston and Syria, through God’s eyes

                                                   

Amid the tsunami of sympathy expressed after the Boston Marathon attack, a photo making the rounds online caught my eye.

It showed a group of young men and boys standing in front of what appeared to be a bombed-out building in a town in Syria. They held a banner emblazoned with these words in bold black letters: “Boston bombings represent a sorrowful scene of what happens every day in Syria. Do accept our condolences.”

I don’t know whether the photo is authentic or not. But the truth about what is happening in that suffering land is unquestionable. In fact, a day when only a few innocents are killed in Syria’s bloodbath of a civil war would be welcomed. An average of 100 civilians die each day as the fighting there drags on. More than 70,000 have lost their lives since the war began.

The numbers numb the mind. Millions of Syrian civilians have been displaced inside the country. They wander the countryside in search of shelter and food, dodging the crossfire of war and fleeing deliberate terror attacks on them as government forces and rebel groups battle for territory. Rape and torture abound.

In the latest of many reports of civilian slaughter, opposition activists claimed April 21 that government forces had killed at least 80 people — and as many as 250 — in a strategic town south of Damascus. Soldiers and loyalist militias burned houses, seized field hospitals and killed the wounded, according to the activists. A British-based human rights group said the dead included men, women and children.

“They’re just scattered limbs and charred bodies that are completely unrecognizable,” a resident of the area told The New York Times. Video images posted online appeared to show a row of bodies wrapped in carpets or bags. Several had been shot in the face. The damaged town’s electricity and water reportedly have been cut off. The only bakery has been destroyed. Those who don’t flee face starvation.

That hideous pattern has been repeated in many other Syrian towns. And rebel bands — some led by Jihadist fighters from outside Syria — stand accused of similar massacres.

“After nearly two years of violence, over 4 million people are in need of assistance,” Jeff Palmer, executive director of Baptist Global Response, told Baptist Press in March. “The number of refugees from Syria [in neighboring Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon] is approaching 1 million, with 80 percent of those being women and children. IDPs [internally displaced persons] in Syria are now approaching 3 million.”

Palmer told of a field partner who traveled into affected areas and “witnessed heartbreaking scenes of human suffering and darkness. In one area, a package of seven pieces of pita bread, a staple food, was selling for US $4. In another area, one liter of fuel was going for $10 — the equivalent of about $40 per gallon.”

Most Southern Baptist relief work so far has focused on Syrian refugees in surrounding countries. But the massive suffering inside Syria cannot be ignored, despite the danger involved in delivering aid. “We have had four project sites, with three being outside the country and one inside,” Palmer said. “Now, because of the deepening crisis in the country, we feel compelled to mobilize more resources through trusted partners inside Syria, while still supporting work in the refugee areas in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.” The aid will include staple foods, medicine and hygiene supplies, shelter, heaters and oil, clothing, blankets, mattresses, carpets and survival-based business assistance.

We mourn the victims of the Boston attack because they are innocents and because they are our own. The death of an 8-year-old boy breaks our hearts. The tragedy hits close to home. The seemingly endless violence in Syria, meanwhile, seems far away, impersonal.

But I can’t forget the Syrian refugee family I met last fall in a Jordanian border town. The Muslim father and mother had crossed the Syria-Jordan border with their five children. They had watched in horror as their teenage son was shot in the head in an ambush. As he lay bleeding in his mother’s arms, she screamed for help. A soldier approached, gun pointed. Their 4-year-old son, who rarely speaks, stood and held up his arms. “I beg you, Uncle, don't hurt us anymore. Have mercy on us,” he appealed.

The child’s eloquent words must have moved the soldier, who took the wounded older brother to a hospital for treatment. The whole family later made it into Jordan, where they found comfort and aid from a Christian church that helps many refugees. The older boy has recovered, but walks haltingly and needs physical therapy.

The Syrian crisis isn’t far away for me, because I have looked into the eyes of mothers, fathers and children who are suffering its consequences. But you don’t have to go to the Syrian border to sense their suffering. If you follow Christ, you can look through His eyes, feel with His heart and touch with His hands. He is inside Syria right now, seeking and comforting the lost and the suffering — just as He was at the finish line in Boston.

“Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few’” (Matthew 9:36-37, NASB).

When you think of Boston, remember Syria, too.
(Contributions to relief ministry among Syrian refugees can be made by visiting www.imb.org/syrianrefugees
and designating “Syria relief” in the comment line. For updates on how God is at work through the crisis in Syria and ways to pray and help, email love4syria@pobox.com)

Somebody's got it harder than you do

Listen to an audio version of this post at http://media1.imbresources.org/files/140/14054/14054-78538.mp3

Checked my retirement fund the other day. Nearly choked. Guess I’ll be working a little longer than I had anticipated — like, forever.

I’m not complaining, though. I’ve still got a job. I know plenty of people who’ve lost their jobs and their homes, who can’t find work anywhere, who wonder how long they’ll be able to provide for their families. You know some, too, I’m sure. You might be one of them.

The great economic recovery-that-wasn’t seems to be settling in for the long haul. Maybe years. It’s global in scale, and even a coordinated international response — which world leaders seem to be stumbling toward in agonizingly slow motion — will take time to produce results.

One thing is for sure: No matter how bad you’ve got it, somebody else has it worse. While many struggle to pay bills, others are fighting to stave off hunger. In places where hunger was already a daily reality, the ongoing global economic crisis has made survival even more tenuous.

A national survey a few years ago revealed that lower-income folks give more generously to help the needy than the rich do. Maybe they give more because they know what it’s like to need a helping hand themselves. It reminded me of the Apostle Paul’s tribute to the selfless givers of the early Macedonian churches. They looked past their own struggles with poverty and anti-Christian persecution to give a sacrificial offering for the desperately needy Jewish followers of Christ in Jerusalem:

“In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us” (2 Corinthians 8:2-5).

Paul shared that motivational nudge with the relatively affluent believers in the church at Corinth, whom he also hoped would contribute to the offering for the poor in Jerusalem. It’s a timely message for us, too, as Southern Baptists observe World Hunger Day Oct. 9. (For more information, visit http://www.worldhungerfund.com/ or http://www.imb.org/worldhunger.) Regardless of the harder times Americans now face, this is no time for us to forget people in far greater need.

People such as Najia Khatun,* age 17. Najia and her 14-year-old sister, Amila,* began studying at the Light of Hope Center in Bangladesh when it opened in 2006. Today the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund helps support the center. Najia, Amila and the other 12 girls who come to the center live in slum shacks, but the landlords expect rent. Najia’s father comes and goes; her mother doesn’t work. One older sister is sick. Najia and Amila are expected to bring home money, however they can get it.

Some of the girls at the center were raised by beggars to become beggars. Others have mothers who work as prostitutes. But inside the center, they eat a healthy breakfast, take showers, put on clean school uniforms, hear Bible teaching and sing Christian songs, then begin their studies. Before they go to their places of work as paid apprentices or trainees in jobs arranged by the center, the girls eat a lunch of rice and lentils with vegetables, eggs, fish or meat.

“Before there were a lot of problems in my family. There was no money for food,” Najia said. “Now I have a job, and I am able to help my family. I am the main breadwinner in my family.” (Read Najia’s story at http://asiastories.com/features/ starting Oct. 10).

She also loves and serves Christ. That’s effective ministry. Southern Baptist world hunger giving helped fund such projects in some 70 countries in 2008. Yet Southern Baptists donated just $4.3 million to the World Hunger Fund in 2010 — less than half of what they gave during a 12-month span a decade earlier.

“We are now at a ‘red alert’ time for our human needs funding,” said Jeff Palmer, executive director of Baptist Global Response, an international relief and development organization, in July. “The overseas hunger relief fund is down to $4.1 million — enough to meet the needs of Southern Baptist international hunger projects for six months. These projects help the poorest of the poor, the most neglected and marginalized and some of the most lost people groups in the world. We are approaching a baseline where we are going to have to start denying funds to critical projects.

“Last year was the lowest donations to the World Hunger Fund have been in 20 years. This is very disturbing, seeing the huge need of the crisis looming in the Horn of Africa [where millions face famine]. Our Southern Baptist avenue of seeing the lost, last and least be helped both physically and spiritually is about to dry up.”

Hunger and malnutrition remain the top risks to health worldwide, according to the World Food Programme. Every day, nearly 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. Right here in America, 49 million people struggle with chronic hunger and malnutrition, including 17 million children, reports the Feeding America relief agency. An estimated 35 percent of poor American families are forced to choose between buying food and paying their rent or mortgage.

Twenty cents of every dollar given to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund goes to the North American Mission Board to support hunger projects in the United States. Eighty cents of every dollar goes to the International Mission Board to support direct hunger ministry, well drilling, agricultural education, water purification and other efforts that help create independence from reliance on food aid. Every cent goes toward ministry. Mission personnel are already in place; administrative and promotional costs are paid by other budgets.

The Good News of salvation through Christ is shared whenever possible.

The Macedonian believers in Paul’s day had it a lot harder than we do. Yet in “their extreme poverty … they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability” for the hungry brethren in Jerusalem. Let’s do the same for hungry people all over the world today.

(Watch a short video about global hunger and the ministries made possible by the World Hunger Fund: http://vimeo.com/30022908)

*Names changed

Tightening belts -- and helping others

If you just lost your job, you’re probably not jumping up and down over recent signs the economy might be rebounding.

You’re not alone. More than 340,000 U.S. jobs were lost in May. The national unemployment rate has reached 9.4 percent — the highest in nearly 30 years — and is projected to climb even higher before it begins to fall.

The pain from job losses and other impacts of the recession continues to be felt in countless lives and families — and in financial support for churches, ministries and mission efforts around the world.

Even before the economic crisis hit, overall church giving among American Christians had been trending downward. “Committed” American Christians (regular church attenders who consider their faith important) earn more than $2.5 trillion a year, according to “Passing the Plate” (Oxford University Press), a new study of Christian giving. Evangelical Protestants are the most generous in their gifts to churches, but only about 27 percent of them tithe. More than a third give less than 2 percent of their income.

About 5 percent of Christians supply 60 percent of the money that funds American churches and religious programs. Many others who give do so cheerfully — but from their wallets when the urge strikes, rather than from their checkbooks as a habit.

It’s easy to criticize the stinginess of American Christians, who are rich by the standards of most of the rest of the world. But Christianity Today magazine’s recent analysis of the “Passing the Plate” study highlights a daily reality average folks face even in good times:

“[A] major reason Christians don’t give more is because they can’t. Fixed costs in households have increased from 54 percent to 75 percent of family budgets since the early 1970s.

“‘A mere two buying decisions — the purchases of homes and cars — are enough to lock household budgets into tight budgetary situations for decades,’ [researchers] say.”

The recession has tightened family budgets much more. You’re likely feeling the squeeze. I know I am. While we’re riding out the storm, however, let’s be thankful for living in a nation with an incredibly resilient economy. Many others aren’t so blessed.

The recession is “the biggest development in the global system in the year to date,” reports Peter Zeihan in the Geopolitical Intelligence Report produced by Stratfor, an open intelligence service. “In the United States it has become almost dogma that the recession is the worst since the Great Depression. But this is only one of a wealth of misperceptions about whom the downturn is hurting most, and why … .

“[T]he U.S. recession at this point is only the worst since 1982, not the 1930s, and it pales in comparison to what is happening in the rest of the world.” Yes, the recession started in America, “but the American system is far more stable, durable and flexible than most of the other global economies. …”

What does that mean in human terms? As we tighten belts and cut out luxuries, many around the world are facing a life-threatening crisis.

“Those at the bottom of the ladder do not have far to fall,” notes one analyst for The Economist magazine. “But what happens if you have clambered up a few rungs, joined the new middle class and now face the prospect of slipping back into poverty?”

A recent message from Christian workers in Kazakhstan outlined the financial crisis in that Central Asian country. Currency has been devalued, prices have soared and salaries have stayed the same or fallen. Life has become very difficult for people with creditors to hold off, families to feed, bills to pay.

“In the past, you have been asked to pray about the hold of materialism on this culture,” the message noted. “Many are coming to realize that security is not in material things. Please pray for many who face desperate times. Ask that they will turn to Jesus for hope.”

For others, the situation is even more grim. Baptist Global Response, the Southern Baptist relief and development agency, is supplying grain and vitamin supplements to pregnant women and children in a part of South Asia where up to a third of the people suffer from malnutrition. The “Wise Mother, Healthy Family” project will help at least 500 women and their families with an ongoing distribution of rice, corn and dal, a dietary staple in South Asia.

“A recent United Nations report states that an average woman in this area has five children, that all of her children under age 3 are malnourished, that she works 15 hours a day and is anemic,” said Francis Horton, regional director for the Southern Baptist agency.

“The food situation in this area has worsened dramatically, and this project … eventually could help far more families than the ones currently being assisted,” Horton said. “Their world is becoming increasingly insecure due to economic, political and religious conflict. Please pray that this project would help them understand God’s love for them and that they would experience the full and meaningful lives He wants them to have.”

As we go through our own difficult times, we can pray for those experiencing deeper troubles. We can help them in practical ways. And we can love them as Christ loves them.