Can you do it? What kinds of decisions might you face, if you lived in extreme poverty (living on $1.25/day, or less . . . less??) How would you feel if your only choices led to increased hunger, risk of infectious diseases, lack of education, or the dangers of human trafficking?
Human trafficking. What a nice, antiseptic, distance-preserving expression. It tends to hide the ugliness of the realities experienced by those who are snatched off of streets--even in our city and across our own nation--and sold into sexual slavery or prostitution. Or? Is there a difference?
But suppose you live in a developing nation, either in a slum near or in an urban area, or in a village. Your opportunities are so limited, and what work you might find pays so little. And then extra costs come up. A relative dies in childbirth, leaving a baby with no one to care for it. You probably take it in, but that's another mouth to feed.
So many things go wrong among those who live in extreme poverty, people who have no good options, no recourse, when something happens.
Survive125 is a game developed by 58: "an unprecedented global alliance of Christians, churches and world-class poverty-fighting organizations working together to end extreme poverty in our lifetime." Compassion International is one of the driving forces behind 58, which greatly increases my confidence in the alliance.
By the way, you may be asking, "Why 58?" I'm glad you asked! You can find the answer by reading Isaiah 58 in the Old Testament. You can learn more about 58 by watching this video, too.
Back to the game: I played it. It didn't take long, but I did not like having to make the choices that confronted me throughout. Each day of a "month" (not a real month; it's a game, remember?) presented another choice, another expenditure, another danger, another demand for money by corrupt individuals. No matter which choice I made, it would somehow increase the burden on me and on my family. I began to feel the sense of hopelessness, albeit to a miniscule degree of what people actually living in such circumstances feel. They have never known anything else, and they have no reason to believe their lives can ever be any different . . . unless a child is enrolled in a Compassion project; then there is some hope. But so few can be registered, compared to the number who live in severe need.
I challenge you to play Survive125, and when you finish it, you can start over and make different choices, along the way, to learn more. And watch the video to learn about 58. Then act, however God prompts you to act--donate to 58, join, sign up to pray. Get involved in whatever way you can. Do you really want to live to see an end to extreme global poverty and know that you could have played some part, and chose not to?
