how then shall we live

about a week and a half ago i moved to bend oregon to intern with a church called antioch for one year. my ministry focus is one "justice", which is a broad, overly used term, specifically these days.

i have the privilege of working with world relief next, a branch of world relief. specifically, focused on the democratic republic of congo. one part of the work i'm doing is to put together a learning group packet or book of information about the DRC. i'm working on the section about the history, facts, and background currently. today i researched the three main rebel groups affecting DR Congo. after hours of reading, cross referencing, and sifting through information, statistics, and stories, i am speechless about what has happened there, and what is happening. after spending two and a half months in uganda, i have an idea of what all this looks like. i've been to some IDP camps, sat with the people there and listened to their stories. but the question that i come back to is, "now what?" How then shall i live? how will this knowledge affect my actions?

the family that i am staying with is a beautiful family. they're a young couple with three intelligent and lovely children. the church that i am working for is their church as well. antioch is becoming more and more involved with DRC, and therefore it's members are too. tonight John, my host's name, brought up a very important and hard question.

first, he explained that for the people who have never been to the places that we are talking about, and who have never experienced the reality of the conflict and seen its effects, it is a challenge to really be connected and to stay connected. not everyone is called to actually go to africa, or thailand, or a country or region where all these atrocities happen. his question was this: What are we supposed to do now?

What good is awareness without action? Really? i think it is almost worse to be informed and do nothing then to not know about a situation and live unaffected. neither one of these options are good. And now that people are becoming aware of what has and is happening, what next? It's one thing to support monetarily, and that is so needed, but what can tangibly be done on a daily basis to make a difference?

we need to develop and mature our reaction to the issues happening today. We need to be thinking about the next step. For so long, we've been focused on raising awareness and educating people--which is so very important. But we also need to develop and grow in order to help people step from aware to active. What are tangible, real ways to make a positive impact on the world today?

So now that we know, who then shall we live?