Blog Action Day: Water

-

I don't know if you pay attention to things like the links on the side of my blog or not.  I totally understand if you don't.  But, if you do, you may have noticed that I added a second 'advertisement' this week.  Up until now the only banner has been for Compassion International.  However, I signed up to be a part of "Blog Action Day" and so I added their widget as well. 

Well, now the day has come.  Today is blog action day! And our topic is water.  Basically, clean water is super important (if you didn't know that, then I advise you to stop drinking out of those muddy puddles in your curb) and a lot of people around the world don't have it.  You thought that joke about muddy puddles was funny?  People actually drink from water like that, and as a result, among other things, 38000 children die every week.  Think about that.  The number is simply staggering and heart-breaking.  I saw a bumper sticker today, and I liked it.  It said this: "If your not OUTRAGED then your not paying attention."  I don't think you can say that any better. 

Or try this one on for size.  Did you know that more people have access to cell-phones than toilets?  Which would you rather have?  (If you answered cell-phone then I would like to invite you over to just change one poopy diaper.  Just one.  See what you think about not having a toilet then)

In July of this year the U.N. declared access to clean drinking water and sanitation to be a basic human right. This in a world where approximately 884 million do not have clean water and 2.6 billion do not have basic sanitation.  To follow up this declaration, the U.N. has also released several MDG's (millenium development goals) whose purpose is to halve those numbers by 2015.  

There is so much to learn about water and the world situations surrounding it.  The Blog Action Day website has a list of suggested topics to blog on, complete with links to follow for more information, here.  Check it out, and learn some for yourself. 

In the meantime there are a few things you can do.  Support organizations that drill wells for communities around the world.  Stop drinking bottled water.  Don't waste water (we all do it, so just stop :).  Buy locally grown food (bet you didn't see that one coming. But transporting food from around the world doesn't just use up oil).  Look it up; ways to save water abound. You could start here or here or here.  I could go on, but you get my drips.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgiveness: A Hard Word From Luther

-
"Those who follow Christ grieve more over the sin of their offenders than over the loss or offense to themselves. And they do this that they may recall those offenders from their sin rather than avenge the wrongs they themselves have suffered. Therefore they put off the form of their own righteousness and put on the form of those others, praying for their persecutors, blessing those who curse, doing good to the evil-doers, preparing to pay the penalty and make satisfaction for their very enemies that they may be saved. This is the gospel and the example of Christ." - Martin Luther (Quoted by Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, pg. 161-162)
Read more

A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit....

-
Image
"Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." - Matthew 7:17-18 "One of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That's because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work. If the goal is defined badly, if it doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, if it doesn't reflect the real welfare of the system, then the system can't possibly produce a desirable result. Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairy tale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce." - Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems. 
Read more

A Gracious Reading of Rob Bell

-
The Journey So Far The controversy rages on over Rob Bell's upcoming new book. No matter what happens now, this controversy has effectively guaranteed that 'everyone who is anyone' will need to read this book. Either to find out what is wrong and bash it, or because someone we generally disagree with also disagrees with the book so it has to be good stuff! Then, because 'everyone' is reading it, people like me will 'have to' read it to. After all, I am a pastor, and if many of my people are reading and being influenced by a book, don't I need to know what is going on as well?  Or so the reasoning will go... and perhaps I will read it, who knows. In the meantime, none of this will stop me from continuing to join this fray which I probably ought to have stayed out of in the first place. Onwards, Christian... :) The Latest Salvo The latest salvo has been fired by DeYoung  claiming that not only do we not need to talk with Bell but, more importantly, it...
Read more