Woe to you who laugh...

In my preparation this week of Luke 6:20-26, I couldn't get past the verse that says, "Woe to you who laugh...". The issue I have is not with Christians enjoying life and living it to the full. The issue I have is Christians enjoying life and living it to the full while ignoring the condition of the poor around the world. It is wrong for us to spend our life and energy pursuing our happiness at the expense of those who live in oppression and poverty. If our prayer is truly for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, then we can't pretend like the world is not a disaster. I compiled the following information about the condition of things around the world. I pray the Lord would lead us into the best opportunities to dance upon these injustices. This is not ok.

• Tragically, nearly 27,000 children under age 5 die every day, mainly from preventable diseases and related causes.
• More than 2 billion people lack access to electricity and modern forms of energy.
• More than 1 billion (one in five) people live on less than U.S.$1 a day.
• The annual world economy breaks down like this: Low Income, $825 or less: 37%, Lower Middle Income, $826 to $3,255: 38%, Upper Middle Income, $3,256 to $10,065: 9%, High Income, $10,066 or more: 16%
• Approximately 143 million children in the developing world (one in 13) are orphans.
• More than 10 million children under age 5 die each year. Two-thirds of these deaths — more than 6 million deaths every year — are preventable.
• There are 1.5 million diarrheal-related deaths per year among children under 5.
• An estimated 130 million of the world's 15- to 24- year-olds cannot read or write.
• Roughly one-sixth of the world's population, or 1.1 billion people, do not have access to safe water.
• About 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, roughly two-fifths of the world's population.
• Approximately 1.8 million children die every year as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. This amounts to around 5,000 deaths a day.
• The average person in the developing world uses 2.6 gallons of water every day for drinking, washing and cooking. This is the same amount used in the average flush of a toilet.
• Approximately 21.1 percent of children live in developing countries without safe water.
• Each day, 1,500 children worldwide become infected with HIV, the vast majority of them newborns.
• Every 14 seconds a child is orphaned by AIDS.
• One person in seven goes to bed hungry every day.
• Every day, nearly 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That amounts to one child every 5 seconds.
• About 5.6 million or 53 percent of child deaths worldwide are related to under-nutrition.
• Approximately 146 million or 27 percent of children under age 5 in developing countries are underweight.
• More than 6 million children die from malnutrition each year.
• Worldwide, 161 million preschool children suffer chronic malnutrition.
• Already 40 percent to 50 percent of the world's populations are undernourished and there are 50 million starvation-related deaths each year.
• Diarrhea kills an estimated 1.6 million children each year, caused mainly by unsafe water and poor sanitation.
• About 40 percent of the world's 400 million school-age children are infested with intestinal worms due to the lack of sanitation.
• More than 2 billion people globally lack access to electricity and modern forms of energy.
• 2.2 billion lived in countries ruled by dictators or totalitarian regimes.
• Children living in areas of extreme economic hardship and social disruption are at increased risk for abuse, violence and exploitation.
• An estimated 1.2 million children — both boys and girls — are trafficked each year into exploitative work in agriculture, mining, factories, armed conflict or commercial sex work.
• Approximately 5.1 billion people live in the developing world. The developed world, which consists of about 57 countries with a combined population of about 1 billion, is less than one-sixth of the world's population.
• 55 percent of all births in the developing world (excluding China) go unregistered, meaning more than 50 million children begin life with no identity.
• Worldwide, 126 million children work in hazardous conditions.
• Every year more than 1 million children get pulled into the sex trade.
• An estimated 8.4 million children work under horrific circumstances: forced into debt bondage or other forms of slavery, prostitution, pornography, armed conflict or other illicit activities.