How often we hear it said: What you don’t know won’t hurt you. A dictum that may be true at times but also dead wrong at other times. It all depends on what it is that we don’t know.
Take the case of this year 1979 being the “International Year of the Child.” Writing in a recent issue of our local newspaper William Raspberry states: “Already IYC is half over, and most Americans let alone the rest of the world—are only vaguely aware that 1979 IS the International Year of the Child.” Debate about the possible effects of this IYC is therefore “silly,” in Raspberry’s judgment. And. we, in our lethargy, may like to fool ourselves with the idea that ‘ignorance is bliss’ and, so, why be disturbed? But, if and when the welfare and future of the world’s children are at stake, we would be fools to put it out of mind and go back to sleep.
The facts are these. In 1976 the United Nations decided to make 1979 the International Year of the Child with a view to “improving the welfare of children.” Earlier, in 1959, the U.N. had adopted a set of ten principles as the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child. On April 14, 1978 President Carter signed an Executive Order declaring 1979 “The International Year of the Child” in the U.S. So, here we are with what is supposed to be a special year intended for the welfare of all children, a year that is fast slipping away.
What shall we say and do about all this? Some may feel free to ignore the whole thing. Many will probably merely nod approval and then let it go at that. As Christians, we should indeed take note and also redouble our efforts to show Christian compassion toward all children, as well as toward adults, whose suffering and wretched. circumstances are so prevalent and painful that we shall never know the half of them.
A shallow response – Unfortunately, there are many whose observance of the International Year of the Child (hereinafter referred to as the IYC) will begin and end in a merely civil or humane compassion. Without God in the world, they live out their lives on the horizontal plane, always without any vertical reference.
The shallowness of their way of living would sometimes seem laughable if the matter were not so serious.
The other day I picked up a flier advertising The Ionia (Michigan) Free Fair that claims it to be the “World’s Largest Free Fair.” The attractions, both good and bad usually found at a county fair, are graphically portrayed in this brochure. The striking thing is that at the head of the brochure you find this, “Celebrate!! International Year of the Child at The Ionia Free Fair.” Children too are entitled to diversion and entertainment but, unless we have something more wholesome to offer them than thrills and spills, clowns, magic, fireworks, and square dancing, may the Lord have mercy on them and us.
Now don’t be so unfair as to say that I condemn everything shown at a county fair. My point is that, when a thing is commercialized, secularized, or exploited, it ought not to be confused with a worthy compassion for the child. For this reason I cannot warm up to those telephone calls asking that we pay for tickets to enable handicapped children to attend the Shrine Circus. Woe to us if all we have to offer the children is stones instead of bread or a serpent instead of a fish. In this we do well to recall from our Catechism that to be truly Christian, instead of being merely civil or humane, our compassion must arise out of true faith, it must have God’s law as its norm, and it must have the glory of our God as its motive.
Countless demands – That all around us, there are countless demands that we show, by word and deed, Christian compassion toward deprived children is obvious for all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
How do you and I react when we are confronted with the needs of the poor and the hungry whether they be close to home or in other lands? Thank God for what we may be doing through the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee or other agencies for relief. But those who know the poverty and the hunger statistics do not want us to forget that even our best efforts in this are no more than a drop in the bucket.
A convenient cop-out for us when we want to still the accusing voice of conscience on this score is to affirm that no one needs to be hungry and destitute unless he is shiftless, lazy, and irresponsible. However, what may be true of some or even many of this world’s poor may never be made to be a blanket condemnation by which to excuse closing our wallets and our hearts to any and every plea for help.
Of the children in the Third World, aged from 7 to 12, we are told that, although there are 201 million in school, there are 224 million who are not in school. The prediction is that by 1985 there will be 375 million not in school. To us for whom an education is so readily available, the challenge comes for us to help in educating these millions.
A practical suggestion – To enumerate or visualize all the needs of deprived children throughout this world would be impossible. If only we could do something to help. Well, we can’t do all that needs to be done, but we are inexcusable if we sit back and do nothing.
In his book The Chris tian Encounters a Hungry World, Paul Simon states the challenge well: “The cry of t he world‘s hungry is a cry to the well–fed Christian world. To turn deaf ears to that cry by our lack of sympathetic action is to turn deaf ears to the Man on the cross” (p. 46).
A practical suggestion is in order. Christmas is not yet at hand, but it will be upon us once again before we know it. Think of all the Christmas parties held every year and of our lavish giving to each other for all these occasions. We joke about trying to think of what to buy for the person who already has everything. Our children and grandchildren receive gifts piled upon gifts. Now why not have someone at such parties show a film or in some other way depict the crying needs of the hungry and starving children in some specific area where the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee is active in relief work. And why not agree to contribute what we would otherwise spend on gifts for each other at these parties to support that work. Having done this for the past two years at my wife’s suggestion, our family has found that it is more blessed to give than to receive and that these Christmas parties were the best we ever had. Christmas in this International Year of the Child should be an excellent occasion to begin this practice. It is gratifying to find that the grandchildren also get into the spirit of this giving and are willing to contribute of their own savings when they begin to see what the needs really are. The CRWRC will gladly provide information about their projects for this purpose upon request.
How good it is to know that, alongside of the gospel proclamation as a priority, the CRWRC is finding avenues and opportunities to minister to those who are homeless, hungry, and destitute whether close at home or in other lands. Consider the following items recently reported in The Banner (7/29(79):
“CRWRC has sent $87,000 worth of food and $20,000 in cash to assist war victims in Nicaragua. The local protestant churches, through which CRWRC works, have been instrumental in reaching the most needy. Airlifts from Guatemala and truck transports from Honduras have brought life-saving food to refugees as well as to citizens left in the war zone. Through this outreach we are able to help 18,000 families, more than 100,000 people. The need continues to grow.”
About those ‘boat people,’ whose tragic lot is depicted for us by the news media day after day and of whom 260,000 are thought to have perished at sea, we are informed:
“CRWRC is seeking churches willing to sponsor Indochinese refugees. In the U.S. the process for clearing refugees as immigrants remains a battle of red-tape. CRWRC is lending its support to agencies working at speeding up the procedure in the United States. Canada is already settling the first of its refugees and the Christian Reformed response has been gratifying there with over 130 church groups offering sponsorship.”
What a challenge this is for us as individuals, families, and congregations, for a generous outpouring of Christian compassion –a challenge for us who have so much to help those who have so little!
To show compassion is to follow in the footsteps of our Lord who set this before us both by precept and by example. No, we do not engage in Christian compassion in order to be saved but, rather, because we are saved. Works of compassion are the beautiful fruits that grow on the tree of true Christian faith.
Our dream – Now let‘s dream together for a moment and also pray that the dream may come true. Imagine the 67,682 families in the CRC setting aside the money it would cost to buy gifts for each other at just one of their Christmas parties or get-togethers this year and donating . it for one or another of the relief projects carried on by the CRWRC. The sum might prove to be staggering. The joy experienced in so doing would be indescribable. Every year we deplore the commercialization and secularization of Christmas by which we are so readily swept along—a tyranny from which there seems to be no escape. A CRWRC Christmas party could do wonders to recapture t he true Christmas spirit so often missing.
Of course, we need not wait until Christmas to send our gifts to the CRWRC for the works of Christian compassion. There is no end to the needs and these needs are pressing right now and all the time. The suggestion about this every–family Christmas party-giving as a concerted and united effort could yield. a new and greater outpouring of compassion for the needy, a Christmas joy that all the trinkets, toys, and earthly treasures cannot give, and the praise of our Lord who would have His boundless compassion flow thorugh us to others so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.
Postscript – In order to keep matters in their proper perspective, the following items should be appended to the above plea for a generous exercise of humanitarian compassion.
1. As Christian parents we should be on our guard lest any government appointed agency gain control of our children and their training. Recently a full-page newspaper ad warned against this in no uncertain terms: “One of the key thrusts of IYC is, uniform control over the experiences of all children. That is, there should be no variation from one school to another. This leaves no room for Christian Education or other alternatives to a centrally controlled public education system . . .”
For further information the ad tells us to write f.a.m.i.l.y.s (Fathers and Mothers in Love Yielding Support), P.O. Box 2626, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49501). The least we can do is look into this upon receipt of the information offered. It would be folly, as the experience of those in Communist–dominated countries should teach us, to assume that “it can’t happen here,” and to refuse to be disturbed. On this side of glory there is no paradise in which the old serpent does not raise its ugly head.
2. In exercising Christian compassion, it cannot be overemphasized that first things must be kept first. The spiritual needs of those who are hungry, poor, and destitute must always take precedence in our ministry to their needs.
Food for the soul and food for the body must always go together like the two sides of one and the same coin. Relief workers who do not recognize this and are unable to address themselves to the one as well as the other simply are not qualified. Let us pray fervently that our Lord may supply capable and dedicated workers able to show compassion by offering spiritual aid as well as the material and physical.
3. In observing the IYC, as Christian parents we should have a sharpened realization of our covenant commitment before the Lord, for the well–being of our covenant children.
The Christian training and provision for our children must be an ongoing activity for every year, every day, and every hour of their lives. In Deuteronomy 6:6, 7 this is spelled out clearly: “And these words which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up.” There is never to be any letup or break in this covenantal care and training in the home, in the church, and in the school. Nothing may be allowed to interfere with it. This is a responsibility to be assumed as second to none. Those who exercise it faithfully will reap rich dividends both for time and for eternity.
The need for a greater knowledge and appreciation of that glorious covenant of grace ought to be apparent to us. To help fill this need the recent book by J. G. Voss on The Covenant of Grace is heartily recommended. It consists of thirty–five lessons and can be used for study by a group or class as well as by t he parents and children at home. It may be ordered from the Board of Education and Publication, Reformed Presbyterian Church, 800 Wood Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15221 for $1.95.
4. Finally, there is bitter and tragic irony in the proclamation of a Year of the Child while at the same time the wholesale murder of unborn children is being condoned as abortions in the U.S. reach the staggering figure of a million a year. A God, in whose sight children are very precious is not mocked. Easy and rampant divorce, broken homes, pornography and sodomy, now boldly clamoring for acceptance—these and other evils are ruthlessly destroying the foundations of our society, with the children often the victims on whom they prey. Children allowed to become television addicts become easy dupes for the soul-destroying forces to which their impressionable minds are daily being exposed.
May God have mercy upon us as a nation, as parents and as families. May He lead us to repent lest we perish with a world that is hastening on to a holocaust of destruction and doom that cannot be averted except through Christ as the only Savior of those who look to Him for deliverance.