| Open our eyes to the plight of children in poverty BY PHYLLIS E. MAY Phyllis May attended the Bishops Initiative Coordinators event on Children and Poverty in Atlanta Jan. 16-19. She shares the following reflections. Seven years have passed and we are finally ready to begin. We have been in a phase of preparation. We are now ready to lead a movement of transformation as we are called to live the verbs of the New Testament: release, restore, free, share, witness, care and evangelize. This is a kairos moment. We have laid a foundation based on the best things of our Wesleyan heritage. What is needed now to strengthen our Initiative on Children and Poverty is to put our attention on the systemic reasons that cause the problems and find ways to fix the systems so that justice for all becomes a reality in our country and in the world. Bishop Nkulu Ntambo from Africa reminded us that we need the system Jesus used to bring wholeness and healing. The system is love, justice and peace. Likewise, Bishop Daniel Arichea of the Philippines said, quoting Jesus, Much is required from those who have much. I dont want you to feel guilty but I think it is good if you do. God have mercy on you in terms of judgment because you do have much. We are faced with some hard realities. Through Scripture and our Wesleyan heritage, we are called to help the children and the poor. Wesley called us to literally live among the children and the poor; to place ourselves in their presence. We are called to be: - imitators of Christ,
- faithful followers,
- of the world but reflective of the Lords Table,
- baptizers, preachers, witnesses, evangelists.
We are called to act as if we are the children, as if we are the poor. We have made ourselves deaf to the cries and blind to the suffering. We dont know the pain of the poor or celebrate the poor because we are not among them. Do we realize the extras we have belong to those who have not? We live on the blood of the poor. A high moment of the experience in Atlanta was receiving and discussing the new study gbwc_superusere for the Bishops Initiative. This new document titled Community with Children and the Poor is intended for congregational study. It is hoped that each local church will participate in the study. What is it about concern for children and poverty that is so very hard for us to hear? What is hard for us to hear is the end of suffering and the sign of hope. We must not be a program, we must become a movement. A movement that pays attention to the needs of children and the poor, but a movement that acts at any cost. We are called to act and react and to tell the truth recognizing this is not a work for a season, but a work for the rest of our lives. We must live so that others see in us hope. Having spent a part of our time among the poor and with children, each jurisdiction wrote a prayer that expresses the reflections of our visit. Let me close with a prayer from the Northeast Jurisdiction. Lord you tell us in Holy Scripture, we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength and we should love our neighbor. Until we see their face, until we sense their worth, until we learn from them, until we see ourselves in their face, we will not truly love God. Phyllis E. May, the wife of Bishop Felton Edwin May, is a Christian educator and an advocate for children. | 
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