Almost daily, we’re confronted with new issues that command our outrage. Frequently they’re issues we should pay attention to, but the constant churn can be exhausting and it can too often distract us from larger problems that we could actually be doing something about.
A World in Dire Need
Fewer than 30% of people in the world have a saving faith in Jesus Christ, so more than 100,000 people die every day eternally separated from God.1
42% of the world — 3.2 billion people — live where there are not enough Christians to reach them with the Gospel.2 Two-thirds of them have never heard the Gospel even once.3
At least 1.5 billion people do not have a full Bible in their language — over 20% of the world. 2,000 languages don’t even have a Bible translation started.4
In America 38 million people live below the poverty line5, and 20% of American kids go to school hungry.6
Around the world, 823 million people are chronically hungry7 — almost 1 out of every 9 people — and 10% of the world lives in extreme poverty, existing on less than $1.90 a day.8
17,000 children die every 24 hours, most of them from causes that are entirely preventable — 6.2 million children every year9. If you slept 8 hours last night, over 5,600 children died while you slept and most of those deaths were preventable.
In America, almost 900,000 babies are aborted every year10 — 60 million and counting since 1973.11
At any given time, 40.3 million people around the world are held in modern slavery.12 Over 10 million of them are children. 4.8 million are in forced sexual exploitation, including 1 million children as young as 3 or 4 years old.13 Thousands every year have their virginity auctioned to the highest bidder.14 In the U.S. alone, 200,000 children are trafficked for sex every year,15 many as young as just 11 or 12 years old.16
Cause for Despair?
When you consider that this isn’t even a complete list of major issues, it’s easy to believe that the task is so monumental that we could never hope to make meaningful progress.
The truth, though, is that we already have everything we need.
Feature Photo by Kelly Lacy