This past week we had John and Yvonne Childers Speak. They are the parents of Paul Childers who is the head of PhotogenX :) John is very wise in the word as well as on teaching us how to properly public speak and prepare small sermans, like we may have to do on outreach. One thing that stuck out to me this week was when he taught on the three Gods Baal, Asherah, and Molech. And how they are still very much worshiped to this day..
Baal: (Lord and husband) ...controlled the weather and therefor the wealth
Modern day Baal: love of money, greed
Asherah: (sister to baal) Goddess of love and sea..worshiped through sexual orgies
Modern day Baal: Sexual immorality, porn
Molech: was a fiery God particularly interested in children...worshiped by sacrificing children
Modern Day Molech: abortion
wednesday night we has to prepare a short 3-5 speech on an injustice issue..I choose starvation and poverty. Below is my speech as well as a short (and bad, I literally made it 15min before by speech) slideshow to use as my visual aid
intro: (hold up picture from book and read this out of book..)
** Decisions I must make on any given day:
-blue shirt or pink cardigan?
-Tall soy chai latte or Grande caramel macchiato?
-write reports first or work on budget
-text message or call?
-eat out or frozen dinner?
-Reality television or headline news?
** Decisions SHE must make on any given day
-blue dress or blue dress?
-river water or puddle water?
-walk once for four hours to get water or walk twice for 8 hours to get more water?
-sleep with the fisherman who will give food in return or let orphaned grandchildren go to bed hungry?
-persist through the struggle, or give up?
-curse God or praise him?
SPEECH:
We take for granted the everyday choices that we have as Americans. "In this world, God has given us the gift of choice. Injustice threatens to take it away. They can drink the filthy, bacteria-ridden pond water or drink nothing. Clearly, that is no choice at all.." Same goes for starvation..they can not afford food, or they have no food, so they do not eat. Again, where is the choice in that? Yesterday we talked about the clean water crisis and today I want to inform you on starvation and poverty. Starvation is a major problem in today's society, but it is concentrated in third-world areas, such as Africa and parts of India and South America.
907 million people in developing countries are hungry. 25,000 people die everyday..16,00 are children. That's one child every 3 second. There is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier. This downward spiral often continues until death for them and their families.
Exports say in order to provide water, basic health, and nutrition for everyone in the world they estimate it would cost around 20 billion dollars, which is how much Americans spend in one year on ice cream. The wealthiest fifth of the worlds people consume 86 percent of all goods and services while the poorest fifth consume only 1 percent. There are over 1 billion people living on a simple dollar a day. People across the world are dying and living in poverty and starvation while we are here over-eating and continuing to be wasteful. Statistics how that 40% of the worlds food supply is wasted. In America we take food abundance for granted. From sushi to steak to salad and smoothies, countless food choices are part of our daily routine and a key component of our leisure and fun. One hundred and thirty-four million of us—75 percent of the adult U.S. population—are obese or overweight. Issues like these are overwhelming and can automatically make you want to shut off yourself from it. The Lord calls us to do the opposite.. he commands us to "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up justly and fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." How can we help, what can I do?, we ask. Freerice.com is a website that allows you to answer simple trivia questions and for every correct answer they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. As they mention in class yesterday only 10 dollars can provide someone with clean water for a week. Like all issues of injustice, amongst the despair and hunger, the dying and needy, there is HOPE and we have hope in our Lord Jesus Christ who cares for us, whose love is sufficient and everlasting, whose grace and mercies are new everyday :)
click here to see a sideshow that I played after my speech..
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