It’s Our Time

You’ve been given your life. No one else has your version. You’ll never bump into yourself on the sidewalk. You’ll never meet anyone who has your exact blend of lineage, loves, and longings. Your life will never be lived by anyone else. You’re not a jacket in an attic that can be recycled after you are gone.   Life is racing by, and if we aren’t careful, you and I will look up, and our shot will have passed us by.

Right now, there are 1.75 billion people who are desperately poor, 1 billion are hungry, millions are trafficked into slavery, and pandemic diseases are gouging entire nations. Each year, nearly 2 million children are exploited in the global commercial sex trade. And in the five minutes it will take you to read this, almost 90 children will have died of preventable diseases. Yet, in the midst of this, we stand as the wealthiest generation of Christians to come. We have ample resources. A mere 2 percent of the world’s grain harvest would be enough, if shared, to erase the problems of hunger around the world. There is enough food on the planet to offer every person 2500 calories of sustenance a day. We HAVE enough food to feed the hungry.

Currently, there are 145 million orphanages worldwide. Nearly 236 million people in the U.S. call themselves Christians. Statistically, American Christians alone have the wherewithal to house EVERY orphan in the world.  But, let’s say 6 percent did. If so, 14.1 million children orphaned around the world could be housed into a loving home. The message is clear: The storehouse is stocked, but the distribution is the issue. God has given OUR generation everything we need to alter the course of human suffering.  (Out Live Your Life by Max Lucado)

And what are we doing?

Thinking through these statistics, I come back to the same question of what am I doing with my life? How am I using what I have been BLESSED with to change the life of another individual? Yes, I am thousands of miles away, living with beautiful at risk girls and sharing love, but really what am I DOING about the issues going on in this world?  In four and a half weeks when I am at home, in comfort, and surrounded by the sheltered media of the United States what will I do? Questions like these, challenges from the Lord to DO something, TAKE ACTION, have slowly began to build up inside of me as I realize that fighting for the freedom of this world will be a whole lot harder once I return home. No longer will I wake up every morning to a little face smiling at me, telling me she loves me “big big” and knowing deep down, that she cannot go home because she would not return, because she would be sold. No longer will I walk down the street and see poverty so severe that the infomercials we see on television have become my real life. I will no longer be BLESSED to be surrounded by this unbelievable and heart wrenching life style that has made me aware of the injustice around us.

As I challenge myself to make a plan of action for when I return to the states, I challenge you as well. We were given what we need to CHANGE this world. We were given the technology, the education, and the ability to change the lives of the nations. GOD HAS GIVEN US THE TOOLS. And I think it is time that we all come together and use them. Let’s change the world. Not dream about it, or talk about it, or even brush this off as “Hannah is a dreamer.”  But let’s do it.  You and I. Together. It is OUR time and I am ready to finally fulfill the life that God has desired of me. And you.