Responsively Yours

April 2005

All the Children of the World

Years ago in coal mines, canaries served as an early warning mechanism against the hazards of dangerous gases like methane and carbon monoxide building up in the shafts. Large amounts of these gases cause explosions, and since methane and carbon monoxide have no color and no odor, detection is difficult. Canaries are very sensitive to carbon monoxide. As long as the birds sang, the miners knew they could continue their work. If the canaries stopped singing, the miners knew the birds had died and they must evacuate immediately before they, too, lost their lives.

Like canaries, children's deaths provide a warning system for a world gone awry. Like birds in flight, children who flourish reflect communities where everyone is likely to thrive.

According to UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2005 report, children are being crushed under the weight of poverty, war, abuse and disease. Besides the horrifying loss of lives, the report's statistics suggest many societies are on the verge of self-destruction, like mines ready to explode from toxic gases.

Of 6.5 billion people in the world, 2.2 billion are children. Half of these children live in poverty. In 2003, 10.6 million children died before they were five. In the past 15 years, 15 of the world's 20 most impoverished countries have suffered civil war. Since 1990, 1.6 million children have been killed in conflicts, and 20 million have been forced to leave their homes by fighting and human-rights violations. In countries like Haiti and Brazil, street children get slaughtered by thugs who go unpunished.

The multibillion-dollar commercial sex industry exploits 2 million children each year, and 1.2 million children are trafficked -- bought and sold for profit. Fifteen million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDs. Half of the 5 million people who contracted the disease in 2003 were under 25.

As children, we learned to sing, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world." We teach our children to sing this song. If we believe these lyrics, we know  each of the numbers above represents precious beings entrusted to our care, gifts from God of new life. We thank God for the gift of children, and we pledge ourselves to promote their well-being. We embrace Christ's command to love them all.

Visit the offices of the Women's Division or any of the more than 100 national mission institutions supported by United Methodist Women's undesignated giving and you will see pictures of children. You will hear stories of how girls and boys bring joy and challenge to our individual and collective lives. United Methodist Women's witness on behalf of children and their families stretches around the world.

For example, through undesignated giving, United Methodist Women provides ministries of mercy, charity and personal transformation to street children in Sierra Leone and Argentina, to orphans in Russia and Fiji, and to children and their parents in community and child-care centers across the United States. United Methodist Women supports HIV/AIDS prevention programs for youth and young adults in Zimbabwe and trauma-recovery ministries in Palestine.

As women organized for mission, we also seek to transform societies that build up political, social and economic toxicity that kills children like canaries in mines. Our Campaign for Children's focus on public education seeks adequate education as a foundation for all children in the United States. We work to prevent child trafficking here and abroad, and our Rugmark campaign helps to prevent child sweat-shop labor. Stories can be told about each ministry we support, each opportunity we take to pursue a social-justice campaign to improve the conditions into which children are born and to give each child hope.

United Methodist Women embraces children and ministries with children and their families as vital, essential mission. Let's build on the work under way to ensure children everywhere flourish like birds in flight rather than perish like canaries in mines. God calls us to do no less.

Jan Love
Women's Division
Deputy General Secretary