Rethink Lent: Day 4- Injustice

How do you think about the injustices of the world?  What is justice from God's perspective?  If you are like me, that's a tough question any day, but especially on a Saturday.  Flip through the Bible, & your life, and the answer picks up some clarity.  I'm amazed as I go through this process that I often label injustice as something of interest to me or that offends me.  There is some truth to my perspectives, though I wonder if there are some bigger issues that I just overlook or miss because of my selectivity.  After all, we all tend to have a soap box or two.  Is my anger, or emotion about some U.S. issues, really a focus on an injustice when I think about the word in terms of the larger world? 

When our mission team was recently in the Dominican Republic we visited a sugar cane village.  Batey 7 is the "company" village for the sugar cane workers who work acres upon acres of the stalk that produces sugar for the world.  In many respects Batey Siete has made great strides in recent years and is a model of what the other cane villages might become.  In the batey they can't own the homes, can't have gardens, have few of the basics, make very little salary, and many are undocumented Haitians.  Think of deep poverty, lack of water, education, and many, many children.  We found ourselves at the intersection of consumerism, company workers and their lives and lifestyle, and the modern hunger and consumption of sugar in this village of poorly paid workers.  But they were not without joy or hope, and they were very hard working.

We also met the lead construction man for the long term UMVIM missionaries who were hosting us.  The man was being forced out of his house & was quickly building a new place for himself and his family.  He had all the construction skills, but didn't have any funds.  His request of the missionary was for an advance on the cost of the tin.  He was hastily making a "stick built" home of available local materials.  If he could get a roof on it his family would at least have protection from the rain and elements.  They would be living on a dirt floor and with no water or bathroom in the house.

It would make much more sense for me to ask one of my neighbors in the sugar cane village called a batey what #injustice means.  

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