Over the years we have been working as Christians Ending Poverty we have learned a few things. It has become clear to us that at its deepest level extreme poverty is the result of injustice and to address the root causes of poverty we must address this injustice. To properly bring about justice we must connect personally and relationally with others, both inside the Christian community and beyond, who seek to do justice and seek to experience a new justice. Consequently we are renaming our group the DoJustice Network.
We are in the process of building a dojusticenetwork.org website, but in the meantime we will use this site for access to our events calendar etc. Please excuse the delay in building the site. We are busy trying to do justice ourselves, and earn a living, which leaves little time available for websites!

We wanted to tell you about a new feature on Change.gov which lets you bring your ideas directly to the President.

It’s called the Citizen’s Briefing Book, and it’s an online forum where you can share your ideas, and rate or offer comments on the ideas of others.

The best-rated ones will rise to the top, and after the Inauguration, we’ll print them out and gather them into a binder like the ones the President receives every day from experts and advisors. If you participate, your idea could be included in the Citizen’s Briefing Book to be delivered to President Obama.

So, if you have a new and creative idea that can help alleviate poverty go to the Citizens Briefing book at http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/

By Karl westerhoff

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”John 9
Jesus is the Messiah who brings sight to the blind. His healing presence overwhelms all the terms we usually use to think about sickness: blame and sin, personal and generational. His response is simply to make the glory of God manifest in healing the blind man.

I’m so tempted to try to find a reason to blame…. I reassure myself and I excuse myself…. But Jesus shows no interest in blame, nor in finding a reason not to help. When the church has become rigid and judgmental, when churches find reasons not to help, the power and presence of Jesus breaks out through people who will be his body in this world. The religious leaders wanted to control who got healed and when. Jesus, the merciful healer, cannot be limited. His presence cannot be confined. His power and compassion testify to God’s glory.

The church has come very late to the suffering of those with AIDS. And too often it has come with only judgment. Thank God that Jesus’ mercy is upon the church as well. He heals us too, and uses us, as he’s using churches throughout the world to show his healing power to those infected and affected by HIV. It’s an incredible witness we get to make! We are forgiven, and we follow a powerful, merciful Healer.

Merciful God, may we show mercy. Forgiving God, may we forgive. Graceful God, may we show grace. We thank you for using us – even us – in your work to heal what’s broken and bind up the brokenhearted. May we be vessels that you can use.
Karl Westerhof is Consituency Relations Team Leader for CRWRC.

Just 3 Days Eating as Most of the World Does
Recently over 100 people participated in a Global Dinner Experience at Crossroads Church. Some left
with their tummies full and others left hungry (not your usual church dinner!) but all left with plenty of food for thought. They also left with a challenge; to continue their experiment in learning how most of the world lives by taking the Rice and Beans Challenge.
Some brave participants took up the challenge, eating only meager meals of basic food items such as rice, beans or plain oatmeal. Half cup measures of these basic food items per meal were recommended to give the participants a small experience of what it is like for more than half the world’s population.
The following Sunday some of us met to exchange thoughts on how we had fared. We all agreed that we really didn’t fully experience how most of the world lives – the uncertainty and insecurity of knowing whether there will be sufficient food for the next meal, since we had only to look in the pantry or refrigerator or drive to the store to see the overwhelming choice of food available to us. However, we did experience hunger, some weight loss, and a very deep gratefulness for the plenty and diversity of our food supply.
If you would like to organize a Global Dinner Experience or take the Rice and Beans Challenge please contact CEP for support materials and resources.

Globally a world record number of people stood up to declare their committment to end poverty and to support the Millennium Development Goals as a means to doing that. In Escondido we had 129 people attend the San Diego County event.
This high level of public engagement on the issue of extreme poverty reflects the same results as a recent survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org which found that 75% of Americans expressed a willingness to pay the estimated required amount (approximately $56 per year) to meet the goals of cutting world hunger and global poverty in half. There is a way (demonstrated by the Millennium Development Goals) and there is a will (demonstrated by the 116,993,629 people around the world who participated in StandUp) The time is now!
Read an op-ed by Anita Sharma here.

Join the Five Hundred For Compassion
It was with great thankfulness and anticipation that I approached the meeting with Congressman Issa in August. CEP and Jubilee members have been visiting with Congressman Issa’s aides for several years and largely due to the persistent efforts of Jubilee San Diego the Congressman arranged to meet with a small group of us to discuss his failure to support International Debt Forgiveness and to discuss his views on ways to respond to global poverty. It is with great regret that I report now on the actual reality of the meeting.
To read our letter to the Editor click here

Submitted by Su kraus

My main impression walking out of that meeting was that I had been run over by a talking steamroller. Instead of a civil exchange of views and an opportunity for constituents to express concerns and detail their priorities, the meeting became a monologue. A mere platform for the congressman to expound his views with little opportunity for discussion or dialogue. Added to that the disrepectful description of a former president as a “Shithead”, and a prejudiced and simplistic view of the causes of the troubles now facing Zimbabwe, left a bad taste.
Nonetheless, Congressman Issa has been returned to Congress by his constituents and I am still a resident in his district. So now my struggle is how to continue to advocate for those whose voices cannot be heard in an environment so hostile to compassion. I pray that I will continue to be grateful for the opportunities our nation provides for citizens to meet their representatives and that I will find ever more constituents who are willing to express their views on behalf of the poor to their representatives. I have set myself a goal of finding 500 constituents who care sufficiently to speak out for the least of those among us. 500 votes do matter to our Congressman. Will you be one of those 500. It begins with just 1! To join the Five hundred For Compassion email info@christiansendingpoverty.org

If you could save a life by simply standing up, would you do it? Can one person standing up save a life from death by poverty? Perhaps not, but when 43.7 million people around the globe stood up last year it got the attention of international leaders , who have the power to finance and implement life saving policies. It all starts with one person, you, standing up. You will be joined by many millions more.

So stand up with us at Stand Up San Diego County 2008 October 19th at Grape Day Park, 301 North Broadway, Escondido CA 92025 ONE .org volunteers will be there to register you from 12 noon to 2PM. Participation takes just a few minutes. At 12:30 we will have a fifteen minute formal presentation so you can participate in our ribbon ceremony and press photos. Alleviate the needless sufferings of millions by Standing Up in support of the Millenni um Development Goals (MDG’s) agreed to by 189 countries, including the US, in the year 2000. A record was set in 2006 with 23 million global participants, again in 2007 with 43.7 million. Join people around the globe in doubling our record again! Let’s not forget those struggling in our midst, so bring non -perishable food donations for Interfaith Services as an offering.

Parking suggestions and invites to share are available via links below: Eve nt details My Space: My Space:or Facebook: Facebook:

Our bothers and sisters in churches in the global south have written a powerful letter to the church in the United States. Let all have ears hear. Click here to read the letter signed by church leaders from Zambi to Australia, Rwanda to Peru.
To view a response to the letter from Micah Challenge and to sign on to support it visit here.

The following article contributed by Jubilee USA gives a clear description of why International Debt is so unjust and also such an obstacle to overcoming extreme poverty. We have urged you to write in support of debt forgiveness in the past. The following example by a Kenyan college professor shows why we must keep up the pressure for debt forgiveness.

By Dominic Odipo Op-Ed in The Standard
There are many strange and ridiculous stories that have sprouted out of Kenya’s unholy experience with its public or national debt. One of the most ridiculous of these goes all the way back to 1953 at the height of the Mau Mau rebellion for Kenya’s independence.
During that year, the colonial government borrowed, on behalf of the Kenyan people, more than Sh500 million [Blog the Debt Note: 1 Dollar = 61 Kenyan Shillings, so a little more than $8 million] to be repaid by us, with interest, in future. The money was borrowed to enable the colonial government to buy specialised military aircraft from Europe with which it would bomb the Aberdare Forest and kill or maim Mau Mau freedom fighters who were believed to be hiding there.
At Independence in December 1963, the Kenyatta-led government inherited all the loans that had been contracted by the colonial government, including this one. And so, over the years, we have been paying off — through our noses — a loan that was contracted to acquire the military capability to kill our own people!
Strange debt
There are many other strange stories about Kenya’s national debt which have unfolded over the years. If you could scrutinise the Public Debt Register at the Treasury, you would probably find that, in the mid-1980s, the government borrowed more than Sh100 million for the construction of a giant meat processing plant called Halal, which was to be built near Ngong’ Town.
The site of this giant plant is about two kilometres from the Shade Hotel on the Karen-Ngong’ road. Visit this site today and you will find that this giant meat processing plant does not exist. Yet we, the Kenyan people, are still paying through our noses every month for this meat processing plant that was never built.
The full story of Kenya and its rather dubious national debt can drive even the coolest and most collected among us up the wall. Every month, as our children die in their thousands all over the country for lack of basic medical drugs, the government is forking out Sh12 billion [Blog the Debt Note: $193.7 million] to service our so-called national debt.
For every shilling that we invest in the education sector (development expenditure), five shillings are set aside to pay off our national debt. For every shilling that we invest or spend in the health sector, seven shillings are spent to service debt. If we turn these figures around, perhaps the message gets clearer.
If we were to stop paying off Sh12 billion each month to service this debt, we would have five times as much money as we now have to invest in the education of our children.
All education in this country, from primary school to university, would be absolutely free and we would still have billions left over.
If we were to stop servicing this debt, we would have seven times as much money to spend in the health sector overnight. This means that we would be able to build a modern hospital in every constituency, fully equipped and staffed, in only three years. In other words, every shilling we pay to service this dubious national debt translates directly into the death or disability of our people. The people are being slowly hanged on the cross of this ‘national debt’.
Usury
But this debt nightmare gets even more frustrating and infuriating as one delves further into it. According to reasonably reliable estimates from the Treasury, since independence in 1963, the government has borrowed almost Sh1 trillion (Sh1,000 billion).
Over the same period, we have managed to pay off approximately Sh3.5 trillion or about three and a half times what we are supposed to have borrowed. Yet the end is still nowhere in sight.
According to the same estimates, our outstanding national debt today is just over Sh750 billion, a figure that is rising by the month due to cumulative interest charges. And then, believe it or not, we are still borrowing for, among other things, the construction of ghost factories and laboratories. We have realised that we are already deep inside this dubious debt hole, but we are still digging.
There are very few political problems facing this country that are more serious that this debt crisis. This problem seeps into every facet of our national life. Continued servicing of this dubious debt is a matter of life and death. We need to thoroughly interrogate this debt and quickly decide whether we are going to remain enslaved by this dubious debt or whether we are going to find an alternative way forward.

Washington, DC, May 14, 2008–Bread for the World president Rev. David Beckmann issued the following statement today concerning the 2008 Farm Bill that is expected to pass both houses of Congress this week and is also expected to be vetoed by President Bush:
“The 2008 Farm Bill represents half a loaf. Congress has increased funding for vital domestic nutrition programs but has failed to substantially reform the U.S. agricultural system.
“We rejoice that additional funding has been given to nutrition programs especially in light of the growing global hunger crisis that is hindering the efforts of struggling parents to feed their children. We celebrate the increases to the Food Stamp Program and funding for food banks. We are happy that the bill authorizes the Hunger Free Communities grant program, which will enable community-based organizations to work together to plan and implement local strategies to end hunger. We are also encouraged that it contains a pilot program that allows for the local purchase of food aid from sources closer to the countries in need.
“But we are missing the other half of the loaf–substantial reform of the commodity programs. Congress has failed to make our commodity programs fairer and more equitable. The bill does little to target subsidies to where they are most needed, but continues to concentrate payments to the largest and wealthiest landowners.
“This missing half has long-term and pernicious effects on global agriculture and trade. Current policies have helped stymie agricultural development in poor countries, leaving millions of people mired in poverty and helping to create the current hunger crisis worldwide. Rather than respond to the new reality of global agriculture, the 2008 Farm Bill locks the United States into another five-year protectionist system that hampers the desperate efforts of small farmers to feed their families.
“We celebrate the important and urgent increases in nutrition funding. But we deeply lament the lack of serious reform of agricultural subsidies in this bill. Many will praise the 2008 Farm Bill as ‘the best we can do.’ We think the United States can and should do better. Therefore, with a heavy heart, we have chosen a middle of the road stance as the bill moves toward final passage.
“Our stand on the 2008 Farm Bill comes from a Biblical imperative that calls for a ‘harvest of righteousness’ (James 3:18). We will keep on working to reform the farm bill until it truly serves the needs of poor farm and rural families and all people around the world who struggle to feed themselves and their children.”