Face to Face, One Person At a Time

More than 20,000 people perished yesterday of extreme poverty. More than 8 millon people around the world die each year because they are too poor to stay alive.Approximately 1.1 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty. These are all figures from the March 14, 2005 issue of Time in its cover article "How to End Poverty." The economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, whose new book The End of Poverty prompted the article ends the article with 9 goals for eliminating poverty from the earth.

The last goal is "Make a Personal Commitment." He says, "Great societal forces are the mere accumulation of individual actions." I am so pleased that Brandon took his girls to Room at the Inn last night where they met the men they had been talking about at home--the homeless. It was face to face. Later, Maddie asked to pray for one of them. Our "streetwalkers" at Highland in Abilene walked the streets of the deteriorating neighborhood, meeting the folks face to face. Now many are coming to the Oasis meals and to church. A small group of people at Highland decided to do "missional" work at the Colonial Apartments down the road from Highland which is housing for some of the poorest people in Abilene. Highland inhabits an apartment there from which the servants operate face to face. Several have been baptized. Families have been healed. Druggies have been saved. Children from there now present a Christmas Pageant every year in the Highland auditorium.

Edmund McDonald, a Presbyterian minister once wrote, "When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, he goes about it in a very singular way. He doesn't release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes. God simply has a tiny baby born....for each child comes with the message that God is not yet done with humanity, but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life." Goodwill incarnate--is that us? Has the baby been born who can save the world? Oh, yes, if only his followers will follow him....face to face, one person at a time.