It's gonna be long.....

    Josh and I have been on a wild journey lately that sometimes shocks me!  Though, as time goes by God keeps making things clearer to us as to how we should live our lives.  I guess it's the "why" we never got this before now that shocks me.  You see, I'm going to throw out a lot of numbers to you via Jen Hatmaker from the the book Interrupted (by the way it's an AWESOME book).  While sometimes hearing these numbers goes in one ear and out the other, I believe this is what breaks the heart of Jesus and what has been breaking ours.

• Of the 6 billion people on the planet Earth, about 1.2 billion live on $.23 a day.
• Half the world lives on less than $2 a day.
• The wealthiest 1 billion people average $70 a day (This places you and me in the upper,upper,upper percentages of the global population.)
• If you make $35,000 annually, you are in the top 4%
• If you make $50,000 annually, the top 1%
• Someone dies of hunger every 16 seconds
• Last year 22 million people died of preventable diseases; 10 million were children.
• 27 million children and adults are trapped in slavery (sex slaves, labor slaves, child soldiers, and child slaves) because of economic crisis.  More slaves exist today than ever before in human history.
• More than 143 million children in the world have been orphaned or abandoned (equivalent to more than half the population of the US)
• In the last hour:
• 1,625 children were forced to the streets by the death of abuse of an adult.
• 115 children became prostitutes
• 66 children under the age of fifteen were infected with HIV
• Roughly 1 billion people in the world do not have suitable housing, and 100 million are entirely homeless

As Jen says clearly, these things are problems of the poor.  While guilt doesn't need to set in, we do start to feel a deep compassion for these people .  And if those things didn't get you then these will as we look at the rest of the world.

• 40 percent of the world lacks basic water sanitation, resulting in disease, death, waste water for drinking, and loss of immunity.
• Americans consume 26 billion liters of bottled water a day.
• We spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half the world spends on all goods combined.
• 4 out of 5 children worldwide work every day instead of go to school.
• 4 out of 5 Americans are high school graduates.
• 8 percent of the rest of the world owns a car.
• one-third of all American families own 3 cars.
• Roughly 40 million people (equivalent of about 7 Jewish holocausts) die annually from starvation, disease, and malnutrition.
• 65 percent of U.S. adults and 15 percent of children and adolescents are overweight or obese.
• The United States makes up 5 percent of the global population, but we consume 25 percent of the world's oil.
• We consume 20 million barrels of oil a day; next is China at just 6.9 a day.
• 20 percent of our imported oil comes from the Persian Gulf. We put military bases on 2 of their 3 Islamic holy sites, and when criticized, one U.S. official replied, "Well, the United States must have free access to the region's resources."

I'm not trying to give you all this information to put down our country. I don't know about you, but from the looks of things if you haven't turned on the news lately not only is our country going down but the world is too!!  It really makes me sad that we have wasted so much of our time and money on useless things when we could have been helping our neighbor out!  And isn't this what Jesus was about anyway helping the least of these, the orphaned, widows, the poor? Showing the love of Jesus at the same time sharing the Gospel.  Because let me tell the numbers on those of us who call ourselves Christians vs. those who are on a road to hell are not good! I guess I am trying to give you a true understanding of why we are living and doing the things we are.  And while this is just the beginning of our little crazy life as I call it, we know that it isn't going to be easy, but He promises to give us strength to meet our needs.  I know that if there were no rough roads to walk, or no battles to fight, we would not grow.  He does not and will not leave us alone.  I know he will stand beside us to teach us and strengthen us to face them through this journey .  And as my girls have said, as long as we simply love God and love others, I think we'll be OK.  My prayer is that we will have an honest image of Jesus' life.