Causes

These days, it's becoming a fad to have a cause. Bono, of U-2 fame, has his DATA organization to alleviate poverty in Africa and the (RED) campaign to raise money for the fight against AIDS in Africa. Angelina Jolie is the UNHCR's Goodwill Ambassador, the spokesperson for refugees and internally displaced peoples. Lucy Liu is the US Fund for UNICEF Ambassador, committed to the organization's HIV/AIDS awareness and education programs. Bill and Melinda Gates started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the fight against preventable diseases among other initiatives. The list can go on and on.

It's awesome to see "outliers", to borrow Malcolm Gladwell's term, use their exceptional fortune to do some good in this world. In an age where the Lindsey Lohans and Brittany Spears and Paris Hiltons of the world headline the tabloids with their latest celebrity exploits, I find it abhorable that not as much media attention has been placed on Ben Affleck's "Gimme Shelter" short film for UNHCR's effort to raise $23 million for the refugee crisis brought on by the Democratic Republic of the Congo's civil war.

But as helpful and productive the attention that celebrities bring to some of these causes are, it is simply not enough. The challenges that the world faces today is overwhelming. Much of sub-Saharan Africa is trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and war. Child soldiering has been and continues to be employed in many wars across the world. Indentured servitude and sex trafficking is the largest slave movement in modern times. Religious intolerance and persecution is not on the decline, and there were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than all the prior centuries combined. Corruption is rampant in the U.S. and other economic powerhouses of the world. Dictators ruthlessly enslave their own citizens and execute others without cause. Tens of millions are without clean drinkable water while millions more are without basic nutritional food. People in abject poverty live in the base of garbage dumps, where they scavenge for leftover food and/or junk they could sell to vendors. We need not look too far to see that right in our own backyards are people who are disabled, homeless, incarcerated, victims of substance abuse, etc. Can there be a celebrity spokesperson for all of the thousands and millions of needs in this world?

It is no wonder that many choose to ignore the troubling circumstances of our times. They pretend as though poverty, AIDS, refugees, etc. do not exist. Or they simply don't care. The cynic inside of me fights to come out at times. There's simply nothing I can do. It's just too much. But I believe that God has called each and everyone of his people, including myself, to run this race for the least of these. Sure, there is no way in hell I'm going to be able to devote my time and resources to fight every battle. But I think that is the beauty of the Church, the partnership of the saints. I may be passionate about children's rights and human suffrage movements; others might be passionate about access to healthcare and preventable diseases; some others might be concerned with homelessness and substance abuse patients. And together, we can make tangible inroads in helping alleviate some of the tantamount issues of our age.

I am no idealist. I believe it is fundamentally impossible that we can eradicate all the problems of this world. That is what heaven is. But I believe that the words of Isaiah and Micah are not just in the Bible for the sake of being in there. I'm not sure how God will specifically use me to run this race for the least of these. But I am open to doing whatever and going wherever. Would you join me?

Here are a few organizations that are dedicated in doing some good in this world. This is not an exhaustive list, but a list of organizations I am familiar with and support to some degree:
- World Vision
- International Justice Mission
- LiNK
- ONE
- USAID
- Charity Water