“Surely they will help”

I just finished watching “Hotel Rwanda” and was so moved by one of the bit characters (the American cameraman) and how he was impacted.  He defies orders and goes away from their shelter to film the massacre that was happening and when the main character sees it, he says, “Surely they will send help when they see the massacre.”  The cameraman, almost matter-of-factly, says, “No, when they see the footage, they will say, ‘thats horrible’ and then they will go back to eating their meal.”  

Ouch.  

What happened in the Rwanda genocide in 1994 is almost surreal; it’s like hurricanes in distant lands; or disease outbreaks far away from us; or its even like poverty and homelessness just on the other side of our fenced in yards.  I am also reading “Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds” and just finished chapter 8 which challenges us to think of the 5 things we care about most and then try to line that up with the things God cares about most. On the top of God’s list are the hurting, oppressed, impoverished, etc… our top 5 lists tend to look a lot different.  This is where the non-believer has an advantage – they can look at the world as it is for all of its injustices; often those who believe in God have this weird, un-Biblical, un-Torah view that somehow God intends for them to have and others to not have; or there is some scripture that can be used to justify why we have and others don’t.

20% of the world lives in extreme poverty; over half the world on less than $2/day (US$); and if you make $25,000/year you are in the top 5% of the world’s income-earners ($50,000 gets you to the top 1%).  Given the mega-need in our world and our mega-resources…. what is Our Response?