The Spectator

Do you see the spectator in this picture? Probably not. The spectator is holding the camera. In 1993, Kevin Carter made a life changing trip as a photographer to Sudan. The story tells of him hearing the sounds of whimpering child outside of a local village. He followed the sounds to an emaciated toddler, a little girl stopping to rest as she tried to get to a feeding center nearby. There was another figure in this scene, the vulture waiting for the little girl to die.

At this point in the story, it is unclear what happened next. Some say that Carter simply turned and walked away. Others say that he chased the vulture away. What we do know to be true is that the little girl remained there in the dirt, without help and without food. The photographer was just another spectator who could have helped but did not - he passed the girl by. As did a religious leader and a “Godly” person in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. Like Carter, these people had important work to do and this unfortunate distraction was not in their vision statement, agenda nor in their budget plans.

Carter sold the photo to the New York Times where it appeared in March 1993. A year later, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in May 1994.

Three months later, in July 1994 Carter drove to an area where he used to play as a child, and took his own life at the age of 33. The note he left behind tells of nightmares he could not forget.

Today, in full view of the world, there are 30,000 children who die daily from hunger and the effects of extreme malnutrition. 30,000 children who are weak, starving and alone. As with the vulture in this picture, death awaits them.

There are many “Churches” like Carter who are spectators to the suffering of the innocent, seeing and then passing by. Even when told of the need, they make intentional choices:

• To do church as normal - busy within the church but seldom outside the church with those who need help
• To offer great exposition on suffering, with deep theological treatises - but never getting down in the dirt
• To withhold help offering wise retorts instead - i.e. didn't Jesus say we would always have the poor with us?
• To spend the offering on important things - but seldom sacrificing for the poor, the oppressed and the hungry

Although Luke 10 does not state why the “Church” walked by the suffering man, it could be that any of the above choices would have applied back then as they do today.

Thankfully, there are many vibrant and caring churches around the world that are living out the Gospel. Sadly though, there are far too many Churches that are nothing more than Spectator Churches – seeing the suffering of the innocent and walking away from their biblical responsibility.

Like Kevin Carter, a Spectator Church may win an award or two for wonderful worship programs, great seminars, a new book or a fantastic web site. Like Kevin Carter, they will not last. The Churches that will last Cry for the Children.

What is a Restavec?

Some of you have helped provide food to the malnourished children of Haiti through our Kids Against Hunger program. In case you are wondering, we are not done! Even though the recession has hurt us, the work must continue even during these hard economic times – and Lord willing, we will!

There is a large group of Haitian children that you may not be aware of. Children called restavecs.

If you are a restavec:

• You are one of 300,000 Haitian child slaves.
• You are from an isolated, rural area of Haiti where there are no schools, no electricity, no running water and no future.
• You now live in the city with a family who is not your own - not adopted, not as a foster child, but as their servant.
• You are between the ages of 5 and 15.
• You are three times more likely to be a girl than a boy.
• You get up before dawn, to serve your master, his wife and children and go to bed only after your work is done.
• You empty bedpans, prepare meals, haul water from the well, clean inside and outside the house, and do laundry.
• You don't get paid for any of these activities.
• You rarely get to see your family. You might not even remember where they live.
• You rarely, if ever, go to school.
• You do not get enough to eat especially for someone who works hard all day.
• You are subject to physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
• You are a child slave.

A local group trying to help these “restavec” children will be stopping by the "Factory" next Saturday to see how we can help them. They need food for the families that are releasing their children as restavecs (a French word which means to "stay with"). These families want their children but cannot feed them. In many cases, they believe that their children will be better cared for by others. They do not know that they will become child slaves. Now you do.

The poverty that paralyzes Haiti today was not always there. That island was once free, idyllic and safe for children to live, grow and to have families of their own. But slavery changed all that. We must remember though that a time is coming when the Great Emancipator will come back. Until then, He has commanded us to go, He has empowered us to serve and He has blessed us with the resources needed to set the captives free.

Paul once wrote (Galatians 4:13)
My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do anything that you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love

Right now, children in Haiti and ALL OVER THE WORLD are being sold into slavery. They have no choice. We do. So here comes the question:

Is your freedom working to serve others?

A Child's Hope International exists because the children are waiting – will you help us? Visit the website at http://www.achi.us/ to find out how. We need your help. Donate if you can, email us on the web site or leave comments here on this blog to encourage the team involved with this work.

The Elephant in the Room

"So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound… But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.

Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust."

(Martin Luther King Jr. - Excerpts from his Letter from the Birmingham Jail April 16, 1963)

This martyr spoke about the elephant that nobody wanted to admit was there. Back then, it was the elephant of black injustice in America. For the most part, the Church ignored that the elephant was there even though it was huge and could not be avoided.

Just last week I returned from Haiti, a small Caribbean island just south of Cuba. Ravished by years of poverty, the toll upon the women and children there is tragic. Reports by CBN, claim that one in five children die from hunger causes. Can you imagine your children so hungry that you offer to give them to strangers - not because you don't love them - but so that they will live? That happened to us on Saturday night. A peasant woman handed us her son Job, just 6 weeks old, because she had no food for him.

One out of four children in developing countries is underweight. 350 to 400 million are chronically hungry. 40% of the people of the world live on less than $2 a day. One child dies (dead) every six seconds from hunger related causes. Thankfully, the Church is helping to correct this modern day injustice – defined so clearly in the Bible. But read this carefully: the American Church, with the wealthiest Christians in all of history, gives less than 2% to assist the poor worldwide.

Friends, there is an elephant in the room of the Church and sadly, many are choosing to ignore it. I have heard some leaders shrug and say that is not their fault that so many are poor in the world today. Some church leaders believe that the elephant will go away on its own. Others say that the government must care for the elephant. Still others say that it is the mission of the church across the street to care for the elephant. The elephant is like a prophet of old telling us what we do not want to hear. The elephant trumpets loudly that God says WE are guilty if we allow people to remain deprived when we have the means to help them. Why are there over 2,000 passages in the Bible dealing with poverty and injustice? Are we to cut those passages out and ignore them? Some do because it is easier to deny that the elephant exists than to do something about it.

Friends, we cannot continue to spend more on hiring staff, more on building plans and more on worship venues until we address the needs of the poor. Martin Luther King, Jr was correct in his jail house writing from 1963. Now nearly 50 years later, what MLK wrote is still true: We must re-capture the sacrificial spirit of the early Church or be dismissed as a country club for the elite.

We all need to ask our leaders about the elephant we see in the Church. Ask for and examine the church budgets. Churches need to pay staff and they need to expand - but how much and to what extent? Ask these questions in the context of all tithes and offerings that are given:

• How much is spent on salaries, benefits, expenses for the staff?
• How much is spent on worship expenses and activities? Or on a planned new Sanctuary?
• How much is spent every year on correcting known injustice in the world (AIDs, the plight of the 143 million orphans, the slave trade of children, etc)?
• How much does the church sacrifice, really sacrifice to feed the 10 million children who will starve to death this year?
• Who is getting the largest piece of the missions budget?

I encourage you to read The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns. Ask your leaders to do the same. If the elephant is still not acknowledged, then you have a decision to make. Stay or find a church where the whole Bible is preached and not the one with the holes in it.