Zealous Love.

So I just finished reading this book called Zealous Love. It took me awhile to get through it to be honest..and it's not even that long, but the concepts are big! Really big! So the tagline for the book is A practical Guide to Social Justice and the book touches upon 8 issues: Trafficking, Unclean Water, Refugees, Hunger, Education, Environment, HIV/AIDS, and Economic Inequality. I must say it is the issues of unclean water, HIV/AIDS and economic ineqaulity that get me all fired up! The editors Mike and Danae Yankoski have compiled TONS of real life stories of people working in each realm. The stories are encouraging amongst all the discouraging facts and statistics...interlaced within all the stories are some bits I wanted to share.

UNCLEAN WATER - Water is life. After air, it's the most essential bodily requirement. All of our bodies' mechanisms depend on water. The average human can survive only about three days without water. When the body is deprived of water, brain function deteriorates quickly. The tongue swells and cracks. The eyes deflate as the volume of fluid decreases...drinking contaminated water can be almost as awful. Vomiting and diarrhea rapidly dehydrate the body, often leading to death.

Most of us flush our toilets several times a day without stopping to consider that between two and three gallons of unclean water just went down the drain. That's more than some people in developing countries may have for an entire day's cooking, cleaning and hygiene. Never flushing our toilet isn't the answer, but the privilege of so much clean, cheap water ought to make su pause. Our brothers nad sisters in other countries are dying becuase they lack clean water while we wealthy folks in developed countries have so much clean water to spare that we defecate in it and then flush it away.

REFUGEES - the following is a quote from Mother Theresa - You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world ther are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted nor desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty.

HUNGER - the following is a quote from Basil the Great - When someone steals a man's clothes, we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has not shoes/ the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.

HIV/AIDS - Quote from C.S. Lewis - you never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had tohang by that rope over a precipice. wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it?

ECONOMIC INEQAULITY - Quote from Dallas Willard - Christians must learn how to live simply, even frugally, though controlling great wealth and power - his point is that by living simply and frugally, we might use our wealth for others - for selfless rather than selfish purposes...instead of our only concern being a luxurious retirement, a bigger house, faster car, or nicer clothes, or that incredible vacation next summer, we should also consider the needs of others.

What gets you fired up?? whats your issue? what do you care about? What do you want to see change?