Monday Morning Reality Check
Inform! Remind! Persuade! 1.1 billion people have yet to hear the Good News.

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Global human need
by Justin D. Long

Jesus cared about the poor, the sick and the dying. Today, one of the major barriers to reaching World A with the gospel is the high death rate--they literally die before we have time to reach them. Here are some reasons:

HUNGER: There are 1.8 billion undernourished people in the world. 400 million are on the verge of starvation. 10 million babies are born malnourished each year. 20 million people die every year due to starvation. 1.3 billion have no safe water to drink; 25,000 are killed every day by dirty water.

LACK OF SHELTER: 100 million people have no shelter; 50 million dwell in caves. Our world's slums grow by 70 million inhabitants every year.

LACK OF MEDICAL CARE: 1.5 billion people have no access to medical care. Many drug-resistant diseases are on the rebound. 10 million have tuberculosis. Each year, 3 million are killed by TB and 5 million by malaria.

DISASTERS: There are 10 million environmental refugees and 850 million at risk due to increasing desertification. 80,000 are killed in earthquakes (like the 6.4-scale earthquake which struck China earlier this week). 10,000 are killed in floods each year.

Our research team estimates that $500 billion per annum is needed to provide those in poverty with adequate food, water, education and health. (By comparison, organized crime alone costs our world $600 billion every year.)

Some goals we can participate in:

  1. Support the FAO goal for the eradication of hunger (originally by AD2000).
  2. Prevent the world's 20 billion rats from eating or destroying 25% of the world's food supply each year by rat-proof grainaries and eradication campaigns.
  3. Support WHO goal of safe drinking water for every soul on Earth by AD2000 & Beyond.
  4. Cooperate with agencies who are setting in place a teams of fully-trained, financed and prepared disaster-relief specialists ready to minister anywhere in the world at an hour or two's notice.

Of course, it's impossible for any single agency to do the whole of all of these. Still, many of us can participate in programs on a country-wide basis which, taken together, can fulfill these goals.