Justice

Seek Justice
Rescue the Oppressed
Defend the Orphan
Plead for the Widow
Isaiah 1:17

So what of our mission here. Mission Planet Earth? Mission United States, Mission Texas, Mission Clyde? Or is there a border? Are we comfortably complacent? Is it okay to be so focused on our freedom from the constraints of our own minds that we are inadvertantly missing a greater calling to set the captives free? I am sometimes confused by the greater good and my personal convictions. I hate it when some book or truth is thrown in my face and I am forced to rexamine my positions. Actually, I don't hate it. It just feels so damn uncomfortable to think that I am not fulfilling my purpose. So the book is called Terrify No More by Gary A. Haugen- International Justice Mission.

Let me give you some fuel for the fire of intentional activity....

"All that is necessary for the triumph of Evil is for Good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke

"I am frequently amazed at my own shrunken circle of compassion, especially when I come from a faith tradition that teaches again and again of God's great compassion and passion-for the world. I am enamored with the shriveled world of me and mine......I have a poverty of compassion." Gary Haugen

"The second poverty is a poverty of purpose. I marvel at the way forces conspire to bend the purpose of my life toward increasingly petty things and away from the grander purposes outside myself for which I sense I was truly fashioned by the maker." Gary Haugen

" We must picture hell as a state where everyoneis perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." C.S. Lewis

"The third poverty is a poverty of hope.....we underestimate the value of what God has given us to transform lives. We underestimate the value of a single human life." Gary Haugen

" While there are millions of girls and women victimized everyday, our work will always be about the one. The one girl deceived. The one girl kidnapped. The one girl raped. The one girl infected with AIDS. The one girl needing a rescuer.To succumb to the enormity of the problem is to fail the one. And more is required of us.......There are millions they say, what is the point of one. 'I think Elisabeth understands the point. Elisabeth is the point.' " Sharon ? Attorney at IJM.

IJM has categorized the work they do. (1) Free the victims(2)Prosecute the perpetrators(3) secure places of safe aftercare for victims(4) transform communities so the injustice is not acceptable any longer.

Wow. It is with great caution they accomplish their goals. The work is very well orchestrated and well-researched.
Is it possible to consider that within each of us we are called to the same level of accomplishment-just specific to that which we are called. To that which we are chosen. We are a chosen people.

SO for me...(1) Identify people in need of food, clothing, healthcare (2) Offer assitance and resourcing to provide these items(3)secure places of safe counsel and demostrate the love of Christ(4) transform communities so that the denial of these basic physical and spiritual needs are no longer evident(5) Network communities of believers that share some common vision in the desire to seek justice for those involved.