Gifts are a big part of Christmas, and Advent helps us keep those gifts in perspective by emphasizing a different sort of giving. Mite boxes for collecting coins are an important part of the season. You can use them daily as a thanksgiving offering, or as an opportunity to share with our neighbors in need, perhaps by giving a percentage from each shopping trip. Whatever discipline you choose, this year’s offering will go to Episcopal Relief and Development to end poverty through the priorities of the Millennium Development Goals.
What are the Millennium Development Goals?
Wars, famine, disaster after disaster—does it seem like nothing ever changes? Pay attention to enough international news and compassion fatigue sets in. Even the least-cynical among us begins to question whether anything can ever be done to really help those in extreme need.
In fact, much can and has been done. What’s needed is a plan, and such a world-wide plan has been created in the Millennium Development Goals. These 8 priorities, set by the UN in 2000, offer a roadmap to improvement, using government and nongovernment resources to extreme poverty through development, education and improvement in health. The overall goal is to reduce, by 2015, the number of people living in extreme poverty (on less than $1 a day), currently about 1.4 billion people, less than the 2 billion living at that level in 2000. Each week at Trinity we will be highlighting one or two of the Goals in our prayers so that we can better understand the reality of both hope and poverty in our world. There is surprisingly much that we can do, and Advent is our start.
For indepth reports about the MDGs, including targets and progress toward those goals, go to http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx