Bethlehem's Extra Mile
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
[Published in The Morning Call, August
4, 2007]
The
eight Millennium Development Goals of
the United Nations will not solve all
the problems of the world, but they go a
long way towards making life sustainable
for all. They focus on poverty and
hunger, education, empowerment of women,
child mortality, maternal health,
disease, environmental sustainability,
and global partnerships.
The
price is low –.07% of the Gross National
Product of our United States.
In
the Diocese of Bethlehem, we have begun
something unique to go an extra mile:
a capital campaign for others. We are
currently in the advance gifts phase of
our
Some 75% of the money raised will
help the destitute in
We are
responding to the request of the Diocese
of Kajo Keji in the southernmost part of
Sudan for assistance in building the
educational and organizational centers
that will allow them to provide for
their own future. Through revolving
“micro-finance” funds, enterprising
individuals, largely women, will be able
to make a new start in a war-torn
country.
We have had a
partnership relationship with that
diocese for the past six years. A few
months ago,
a four-person diocesan mission team
visited schools, an orphanage, a
displacement camp, and the site of the
proposed center of the diocese which
will house the cathedral, the
theological college, the bishop’s house,
an agricultural center and a primary and
secondary school. They also met with
local leaders to hear them talk about
priorities and dreams.
In July of 2004, some 160,000 expatriate
Sudanese came back across the southern
Sudan border when Kajo Keji was
experiencing a drought. That created a
desperate situation. We were able
quickly to raise $80,000 to send trucks
loaded with staples from Kampala,
Uganda, over rutted roads in the Kajo
Keji area.
“What the Diocese of Bethlehem has
done,” wrote a correspondent in
Sudan, “will enter the history books of
Kajo Keji. Your actions have given our
people hope that they are not alone.”
In early
2005, Diana Marshall and I spent an
intensive five days with sisters and
brothers in Kajo Keji. A broiling
bus ride remains the major moment of
conviction in my life: in the heat,
dirt, and physical danger of that
journey I knew we are called to work
selflessly with these fellow members of
Christ.
Since
2000, I and others from our diocese have
gone to Africa several times to seek a
vision for Bethlehem among the suffering
and those who care for them, in a place
where the Holy Spirit can work.
Though I
have known, intellectually, the
disparity between what we Americans take
for granted and how most of the world
actually lives, seeing it produced a
jumble of thoughts and feelings. I was
grateful, embarrassed, a little sick,
but mostly convinced that it is not
possible for a Christian to see this
much suffering and not lower his own
standard of living in order to help
brothers and sisters. I returned with
the determination never again to let
myself be gulled by our culture into
feeling deprived.
In
September, every member of our diocese
will be given the opportunity to make a
commitment for New Hope.
Though
we don’t get to keep the money, there is
something in this campaign for us. We
are not simply taking a collection. We
are inviting ourselves to sacrifice, to
lose a bit of our substance. We find our
lives, however, in letting go. Where
sacrificial giving for others occurs, I
am convinced we enter a new way of
experiencing ourselves.
I have
come to no greater opportunity in my
life to give selflessly, to surrender
significant resources in service to God.
Making that commitment means that I am
going to have to retire a little bit
later than I had planned. For others,
the sacrifice may also have
consequences. It may mean keeping a car
a year longer or not taking that dream
vacation just yet.
In
calling ourselves to go the extra mile,
we are calling ourselves to
transformation, to growing more into the
image of God we were created to reflect.
[The Rt. Rev.
Paul V. Marshall is bishop of the
Diocese of Bethlehem, 14 counties of
eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania.
Additional columns and sermons by Bishop
Marshall are available at
www.diobeth.org.]