ADVOCACY for the Most Vulnerable Around the World – Part 7
Since 1918, Lutherans in the U.S. have organized to care for migrating people. Today, over 100 million people have been forced to move within their countries or to cross borders as refugees, asylum seekers, and economic migrants. No matter where they are and how they are classified, we’ve not stopped caring. When migrants pass through our city, we serve with our hands, making hygiene kits, dishing up meals. When we see systemic problems that push people to move, we serve with our voices, advocating with Global Refuge and Bread for the World.
BREAD FOR THE WORLD: Lutheran Pastor Art Simon and his Catholic and Protestant friends founded Bread for the World in 1974. Their idea was to address hunger at home and abroad through advocacy with Congress. Now, Bread is organizing the 2025 Offering of Letters campaign, Nourish Our Future, which focuses on children in the U.S. and in the world’s poorest countries. For those children abroad who live in extreme poverty, Bread is calling for a Children’s Jubilee based on the Biblical principle of debt forgiveness.
In 2023, World Bank economists Indermit Gill and M. Ayhan Kose wrote that “[t]he poorest countries are in desperate straits, and the rest of the world is looking the other way.”1 They were speaking of 28 countries—home to 700 million people—that need debt restructuring and other assistance. Most of the countries are in Africa; a few are in Asia, and, Haiti is on the list in our hemisphere. The economists point out that people are taking huge risks to leave these countries and seek lives elsewhere. As a result,
[t]oday, wealthier countries are redirecting more of their foreign aid budgets to meet the surge of refugees arriving on their own shores. . . . Even as they remain generous to arriving refugees, wealthier countries should redouble their efforts to end the misery at the source.2
To act at the source, let’s advocate. Advocacy for good policy invites us to exercise our best: our faith, love, critical thinking, patience, and imagination. Imagine the results of a Children’s Jubilee--debt relief for poor countries still emerging from colonialism, giving them the means to spend more on children’s education and health. Join us on September 21 at All Saints, when Bread’s Regional Organizer Kenneth Fujimoto will discuss the campaign to Nourish Our Future.
GLOBAL REFUGE (formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service): When migrating people arrive in our country seeking safety and opportunity, Global Refuge is there to help. Like Bread for the World, Global Refuge invites us to use our voices to advocate with Congress. The goals for 2024 are 1) Build the Refugee Resettlement System, 2) Lift Up Newcomers’ Economic and Civic Integration, 3) Protect Unaccompanied Children, and 4) Provide Protection Pathways for Vulnerable Populations. To act, visit Advocate with Us | Global Refuge
We are not looking away from global poverty, and like our Lutheran and ecumenical predecessors who organized advocacy groups decades ago, we care.
1 and 2. A tragedy is unfolding in the poorest countries (worldbank.org)