One of the things I do most weeks is write an article about CUMC’s Mission Team’s monthly appeal, or our current mission fundraiser. This month we are joining other United Methodists of the Northern Illinois Conference and raising money towards Global Migration. Today, I read that there are currently 65 million…that’s 65,000,000 people who are presently displaced from their home community. I also read that today 28 thousand people will begin their own journey for a safe haven. In order to put these 65 million people into some perspective, I decided to check what our world population is at the present time. I found a website that said we presently have over 7.6 billion people. I have trouble visualizing how many that is, but the same website anticipated that. The same site had a quickly moving number, one that I decided to copy. The digits just flew by; the world population grows quickly. By the time I completed writing the number there were 27 more people than what there were when I started to copy the 10 digit number.
My immediate reaction to this: 65 million people are beyond my grasp. And then I remembered that the Good Samaritan was not called to solve the problem of highway robbery on all the existing roads, or determine the best way to medically treat every person who met with an accident when traveling. The Good Samaritan encountered one individual and dealt with that problem. We aren’t being asked to solve the world’s problems, we are being asked to help how we can.
My second reaction to this staggering number: I thought about the New Testament Story of the Loaves and Fishes. When the crowd had listened to Jesus for several hours, they became hungry. Jesus asked about food. It was a child who offered Jesus his lunch of loaves and fish, and in the end this simple lunch fed a multitude. With God’s help, a simple solution can be refined and it actually works.
So, the Bishop of our Conference asks you to give what you can. Perhaps you can skip dessert once or twice this month and give the amount that would cost. Perhaps you can remember your own ancestors who left “the old world” in search of a better life. Could you honor their memory with a donation for the United Methodist Global Migration Fund? Could you contribute your change this month?
The Conference is suggesting that each church in our conference try to give $200. We have about 60 in church on a typical Sunday. Every dollar or two will help. If you wish to have your donation recorded on your church record of giving, please write “Bishop’s Appeal” or “Global Migration” on the memo line of your check which should be made out to Christ United Methodist Church. You can also donate coins for Global Migration by putting loose change in the change jar near the TV in the church lobby. This drive ends Sunday, May 27.
Maylo Hranac, Mission Co-Chair