Perspective

The news about Swine Flu is pretty scary. We should all be praying that the virus is contained and that those who are sick would be healed.
But last night I read something from one of the Compassion India Bloggers, Pete Wilson, that stopped me cold:
“Today more than 26,500 children will die of preventable causes related to their poverty. And guess what? It will happen again tomorrow… and the next day… and the next. Around 10 million children will be dead in the course of a year.”
Today, as we fret and fear the unknown. Today, as we wipe down our desks with Clorox wipes and wash our hands for the umpteenth time, 26,500 children will die from disease and illness that we in the developed world no longer consider. Malaria from mosquito bites. Dysentery from dirty water. Starvation.
26,500. It puts it into perspective, doesn’t it?
Sponsor a child from India today. You won’t notice the $1 a day it will cost you, but that child will notice it, I promise.

Compassion in India

Next week a group of writers and photographers will travel to India as part of a team with Compassion Bloggers.

The selfish part of me wishes I were going with them. But the rest of me is just glad they’re going.
Aaron and I watched Slumdog Millionaire last weekend — and while I liked it and could see why it won Best Picture — it didn’t affect me the way I know it did many. I wonder if that’s because a lot of Americans were previously unaware of the plight of many Indian children. I don’t know; that’s just my guess.
India is never far from my thoughts, or far from my heart. I think of my sweet cousins often and I feel humbled to know them. I think of the children we sponsor, and I feel humbled that God would allow me the opportunity to build a relationship with someone so far away; with someone with whom I likely will never meet this side of heaven.
The kind of poverty depicted in Slumdog Millionaire is real. Orphans are real. And they deserve rescue. And not the rescue of the West or the rescue of man. But rescue by the Son of Man, who is the king of ALL the nations. He is the God of India as much as he is the God of me.

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