Joyce Banda, a widow in Zambia, is a vegetable trader who has AIDS and lives with her four children on less than $1 per day. She says, "Death has come to Zambia so I might as well give up on life." Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, Zambias president, was quoted as having said, "At the moment the economy is insane." As one reads of these developments and sees them with ones own eyes, it seems easy to throw ones hands in the air and wait for death.
Is the situation really hopeless? It depends on who is doing the talking.
The vision of the kingdom of God is of creation brought to wholeness and a society in which the values of justice, peace, prosperity, and joy prevail. Isaiah 65 gives us a picture of this kingdom in which the people will enjoy safety and the produce of their farms. Social justice will triumph, and no World Bank or IMF will deprive the citizens of what is rightfully theirs.
The Micah Challenge campaign is an international anti-poverty campaign organized by the World Evangelical Alliance and the Micah Network, comprising hundreds of Christian aid and justice organizations worldwide. It aims to deepen Christian engagement with the poor and to influence leaders of the rich and poor nations to fulfill their public promise to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), such as halving absolute global poverty by 2015. Therefore, the Micah Challenge calls Christians to lobby and advocate on behalf of and with the poor to increase and improve aid, drop the unfair debt burden on the poorest countries, and achieve a more just trading system.
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