Often when I’m presenting Compassion, I will reference a short list of statistics in order to provide something of a framework for the conditions agencies like Compassion face when engaging poverty globally.

The list looks like this…
That’s not true.. The list really looks like this:

No, seriously, here is the list:

-5 million children die each year from preventable causes (hunger related)
-27 million people currently live in slavery worldwide
-40,000 people are trafficked into the US each year from foreign countries
-250,000+ trafficked within US each year, including US citizens
-300-500 kids are bought/sold in Las Vegas each day.

These statistics should be somewhat overwhelming and while I think it is important for those of us who live well to know that an enormous part of our human family does not, I am beginning to emphasize a more sustainable motivation for investing time, energy and resources in development work: Ultimately, we must not so much respond to the needs of the world, we ought to, instead, respond to the goodness of God.  Said differently …. But those words are French…

In other words: perhaps our generosity is more sustainable, more complete, more redemptive if it is not rooted in how bad things are around us but, instead, how good things are with us.  I really started to move in this direction after meeting Peter in Uganda.

It is this shift in heart and motivation that allows the work of Justice, Compassion an development to become redemptive for those doing the work as well as those who immediately benefit from it.   We become men and women like Peter, who say “God has been good to me; that is why I do what I do.”