A few days ago, my wife and I were in Washington, DC. It happens that I serve on a panel that evaluates outstanding high school student applicants wanting to spend a semester as a U.S. Senate Page. The 30 Senate Pages attend the Senate Page School, work on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and see history being made. It’s a fantastic experience for them, and I wanted to see the place and say “hello” to the young lady who currently represents Michigan. She was very glad to take us on a tour.

Then my wife and I became regular tourists as we walked through other famous parts of the city. We weren’t alone. It seemed that almost every eighth grade student in the U.S. was there on a field trip. Many high schoolers and other students were there as well. You can easily spot them in their group t-shirts as see their group leaders try to keep all of the energetic youngsters under control. One especially exuberant student had a different shirt caption:
“I Understand Your Problem And I Don’t Care Anything About It.”

His parents probably would not be happy about it, and he may not have been the favorite student of his teachers. Maybe he was simply joking, but I think his shirt conveyed a message that the attitudes and lifestyles of many adults reflect daily—even though they don’t express it as openly. More about that thought later.

Most of my 32 years of teaching social studies was at an inner city high school in Detroit, and most of my students were African-Americans with major economic and other challenges. When teaching the section of American history that dealt with World War II, I would try to take them on a field trip to a Holocaust memorial center about 25 miles away or bring a Holocaust survivor to my classroom. It always was one of the most significant highlights of the school year to help my students come to grips with those horrific issues. Often they compared experiences that Jewish and other victims of Nazi persecution faced with those faced by their enslaved ancestors in early American history. I also tried to help my students realize that there have been, and continue to be, other ethnic conflicts throughout the world.

The last time that my wife and I were in Washington was before the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in 1995, so we were looking forward to our first visit. The museum is very impressive, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to see an excellent depiction of one of modern history’s worst tragedies. The exhibits make it very clear that Hitler and his Nazis didn’t operate in a vacuum. Much of the world knew what was going on (especially in the early stages) but chose not to respond for one reason or another. This tragic lack of appropriate action was a major factor in the death of six million victims (about 25% of whom were children).

As I watched the middle and high school students tour the Holocaust exhibits, they quickly became subdued. Then some started to cry—both girls and boys. Their cries turned into sobs, and they held their arms around each other as they watched the exhibits depicting increasing depths of the tragedy. Although I didn’t say anything, I wondered how many of them realized that the number of genocide victims in the past six decades is significantly higher than the number victimized by the Nazis before 1945. I also wondered how much the student and adult visitors knew about the Rwanda crisis a decade ago and the Darfur crisis right now in western Sudan.

I was very impressed to learn that this outstanding museum opened a special exhibit a few weeks ago called “Genocide Emergency Today”. After the permanent exhibits, the visitor gets a small card with these words:

Darfur, Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of civilians may perish in western Sudan, targeted because of their ethnic identity. Visit the Museum’s Wexner Learning Center orCommitteeonConscience.Org

Check out that excellent website; you will be impressed. It notes that some of the organizations included in this directory are already involved in the Darfur crisis. Others want to do so. There have been quite a few reports on some of the major television networks, commercial news agencies, and public radio and public television. Sadly, however, the amount of news coverage about that in the past six months is only what one commentator called “a blip on the radar screen” in comparison to the recent massive publicity given to Terri Shiavo (the brain-damaged woman in Florida).

It usually does not make headlines when a hungry child in Haiti, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, or dozens of other developing countries has intestinal parasitic worms. Nor is it much news when typically 40,000 other children die every 24 hours because of preventable causes—such as dirty drinking water, lack of appropriate food, or basic medical care. It may not be possible for you or me to personally go there, but the organizations listed in this directory are among the many that are trying to make a positive difference. In saying this, I am not neglecting the importance of helping on the local homefront as well. My religious faith tells me that I am responsible to do what I can at all levels.

I applaud everyone who helped in financial or other assistance for the recent tsumani crisis. However, the number of people who have died under far less spectacular—but preventable—circumstances every month is far greater.

Sometimes our help is by collecting things to send where needed. At other times it is through financial contributions. Certainly we of faith need to pray. Groups like Bread for the World (one of the newer listings in this directory) also seek to influence public opinion and encourage lawmakers to take positive steps. I was glad to visit their office in Washington. We might volunteer some time with groups that sort out medical supplies. I was glad to visit Crosslink International (near Washington, DC) and MERCI (at the University of Virginia) and learn about their programs of recycling medical supplies for overseas use. Likewise I enjoyed seeing Ray Martin of Christian Connections for International Health and learning about his upcoming CCIH conference. More organizations in this directory are located in California than any other state, and it would be nice to visit some of them someday. With the internet and other communications, however, we are so connected that personal visits are not as essential as they were previously. The goal of this directory is to help you find some way whereby you can make a difference.

Let’s return to the “I Understand Your Problem And I Don’t Care Anything About It” t-shirt. If we take the time to watch newscasts or read the newspapers or use the internet, we certainly can find plenty of problems for which we may be able to help provide some help. The Bible has plenty of inspiration. Is there a larger problem that you can better understand and for which you will try to do something about it? I hope that the t-shirt I described does not show how you feel about so many of the problems out there. Maybe you can find and wear a shirt that says “One Person Can Make A Positive Difference”