PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE

Commissioners’ Rebuttals
133
“World Vision is an international partnership of Christians whose mission is to
follow our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to
promote human transformation, seek justice, and bear witness to the good news of
the Kingdom of God.
We pursue this mission through integrated, holistic commitment to:
* Transformational development that is community-based and sustainable, focused
especially on the needs of children.
Emergency relief that assists people afflicted by conflict or disaster.
* Promotion of justice that seeks to change unjust structures affecting the poor
among whom we work.
* Partnerships with churches to contribute to spiritual and social transformation.
* Public awareness that leads to informed understanding, giving, involvement, and
prayer.
* Witness to Jesus Christ by life, deed, word, and sign that encourages people to
respond to the Gospel.”
http://www.worldvision.org/about-us/who-we-are#sthash.wsZ2ZwaP.dpuf
In other words, World Vision’s team does the kind of work that most of the rest of us only
dream of doing. And they do it for the greater glory of their Creator. I distinctly remember
during the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, a newspaper reported that there were only two
relief organizations getting through to the hinterland, where food and supplies were needed
most—World Vision and Catholic Relief Services. Why? Unlike their secular counterparts, they
had a ground game—networks of Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics respectively—who
knew the terrain and were willing to risk their lives to perform what they saw as their duty as
Christians. Their trucks rolled, while the materials brought in by other famine relief organizations
languished in airports, railway depots, and cities. 22 My respect for both organizations is
boundless. I wept off and on for days thinking of their heroism. 23
22
Despite my very vivid recollection of this article, which I suspect ran in the Washington Times, I have been unable
to find it. But a few other articles I have found collectively convey the substance of the story. See Clifford May, U.S.
Will Give Development Aid to Ethiopia, N.Y. Times, May 9, 1985, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/09/world/us-will-give-development-aid-to- ethiopia.html; Rhonda Givens,
Pennies, Dimes, Dollars: World Vision Takes in Millions to Aid the Starving, L.A. Times, Feb. 24, 1985, available at
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-02-24/news/ga-24806_1_world-vision.
23
It brought to mind the lyrics of John Bunyan’s well-known hymn, He Who Would Valiant Be:
No foes shall stay their might,