Helping the suffering in Darfur

SaveDarfur.org has a post called "Evangelicals for Darfur" that's worth checking out...

Please take the time to read the article and browse the site. God's children are suffering mightily there, and we can make a difference with donations and political action.

The more they stay the same

22 years ago at Christmas we were graced with the song "Do they know it's Christmas" by Band Aid. Organized by Bob Geldof, it was an admirable effort by British music artists to raise money to help the starving Ethopians enduring a drought and government-engineered famine. It was soon followed by the awful "We are the World" by USA for Africa.

Fast forward to 2006 and a crisis of similar proportion is unfolding in Sudan. A government engineered famine, ethnic cleansing and a feckless United Nations, and you have hundreds of thousands suffering in Darfur. Except this time they don't have a cheerleader raising money for them. But the need is just as great.

If you want to help out the suffering people of Darfur, you can go here to see some organizations that are working in that region. Not every relief organization is willing to send its people into this volatile are. And please don't give any money to the United Nations relief efforts. The graft and corruption in that organization is shameful.

The Important Things

I know I have been on a bit of a rant about the BCS and how Michigan lost 2 positions in the coaches poll without playing. I'm done with that, I promise. I just hope that OSU andUM put serious beatdowns on their upcoming opponents. Rooting for OSU is hard, but I will do it this year.

I just read a great article on The OOZE about keeping the important things first. As Christians, that means keeping Christ first, in all aspects of our lives. Easy to say, hard to do. Especially when we leave the confines of the church building walls. We as a society take our eyes off the ball very easily. We focus on where Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are going and how they are dressed. Meanwhile we have hundreds of thousands of troops in harms way in Iraq and Afghanistan, a madman with nuclear weapons in North Korea, a madman pursuing nuclear weapons and assuring the destruction of our country and Israel in Iran, and a massive humanitarian crisis in Darfur. I don't want to get into the politics of these things other than to say that there are significant threats to our world, both in military and moral terms, staring us in the face. How we react to them is how history will judge us.

I don't know what to make of Darfur. I can't understand the lack of interest in this country or in the United Nations. This is a humanitarian tragedy on a massive scale, and the world is turning a blind eye toward it. This is a cause that churches can get their arms around. It can be preached from the pulpit, money can be raised, and politicians can be called to demand action. Pray for the 600,000 + people suffering there. They need our help.

As for Iran and North Korea, they scare the daylights out of me. Irrational people with Messianic complexes and no fear of death holding nuclear weapons is not a good thing. When these same people support terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, it scare me even more. Pray for our leaders, so that we do not awaken one day to a mushroom-shaped cloud in our country. I don't know how to fix it. But I know we are called to pray for our leaders.