Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. Ezekial 16:49

A friend recently asked us, “What was the sin of Sodom?”  Yes, the Sodom of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Sodom that was utterly destroyed by God.  Their sin was pride, excess of food, prosperous ease, and a failure to aid the poor and needy.

In other words, they had the means, and they didn’t do it. If anyone has the means today to help the poor and the needy, it is us!

The average American earns anywhere from 52 to 105 times more than the average person in the rest of the world who earns less than $2/day. Are you kidding me?! And that’s if we happen to earn an average income of $38,611.*  If we earn more, the disparity may be even greater!

I recently listened to a sermon and the pastor said, “I know what you’re all thinking… you can’t live in America on $2/day”.  So he asks the fitting question, “Alright then, how many of you will go live in the slums of Kolkata on $2/day?  Any takers?”

The cost of living is really NOT different in other parts of the world.  In some cases, like Uganda, things like food and fuel are MORE expensive!  The truth is, the rest of the world can’t live on $2/day any better than we can.

They just live without…sufficient food, clean water, running water, hot water, showers, toilets, dishwashers, washing machines, health care, vacations, hobbies, life insurance, retirement accounts, heating and/or cooling, electricity, cars, and sometimes even without homes.  It’s not pretty, but that is the truth.

Below are the faces of a few of a few of the poor and needy.  You can see more of them on the sidebar on the right side of the site.  Under “Current needs”, you’ll see the “catalog” as well as “waiting children”.  When you click on the photo of each child in the waiting children section, you can read a little about him or her.

John Mugabi arrives in the U.S. this week.  While he’s here, we’re asking the Lord to provide (among other things) sponsors for these 39 children.  We’d be perfectly delighted if we “ran out” of children this week and moved on to the next 39.  We may not yet know their names or recognize their faces, but our God in heaven certainly does.

The cries of afflicted and needy people rise before God.  And he hears. And he knows.

Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. Genesis 18:20-21

For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it. Genesis 19:13

… the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. James 5:4

Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning… God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. Exodus 2:23-25

*The Hole in Our Gospel, pg 121~ Richard Stearns, President of World Vision