Do you care?

COPING with the world's problems
by Jennifer Wilmore

Photo by Jordan Jarvis

I have a lot of questions. What is the worth of a life? Of half a million lives? Can a world that vowed “Never Again” in response to the Holocaust still fail to act, fully knowing that innocent people are being brutally killed, raped, driven from their homes and denied their livelihood?

I know the answer to the last question because, for the past three years, the international community has allowed government-sponsored militias to carry out genocide against the people of Darfur, Sudan. Genocide is the deliberate, systematic attempt to exterminate a national, ethnic, religious, political or racial group. We are shocked and saddened that this evil was perpetrated in Nazi Germany and Rwanda, but do we not care that it is being carried out now in Darfur, where the death toll is estimated at over 400.000 people and 2.5 million are struggling to survive in refugee camps? Will we be content to weep over the remains of even more precious lives lost when we could have saved them?

As people of faith, our just God calls us “to act justly and to love mercy” (Micah 6:8)—to manifest our love for Him by loving others. In this case, loving our African neighbors as ourselves requires us to first intercede in prayer for them and to then to use the means God has given us to demand that our government and the international community act immediately to save millions of lives.

So I guess my last question is, will you care?