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I’ve had a month to ponder this year’s Voices for Justice campaign.  I needed some time for it all to sink in due the frenetic nature of the logistical work that was needed to ensure that the 230 anti-poverty campaigners from all over the nation were able to be fed, accommodated, equipped and supported as we together notched up over 100 face to face meetings with politicians during the September sitting session.

We had an amazingly dedicated team, terrifically anchored by Rick Oates and supported by so many.  At this point I would like to thank God publicly and make special mention of the above and beyond the call efforts of my assistant Phoebe Davies, our work experience office facilitator Kia Holmes and other wonderfully supportive friends including Kathryn Arnold, Kirrily Howarth and so many others who I will endeavour to name in a later posting. I’ve not been so confident in the offering of volunteers for quite some time.

I recommend that you click on the Micah Challenge Blog in order to read some terrific testimonials and wrap up articles from a variety of people. You can easily get a picture of what happened by reading some of these blogs but for the purpose of this webresentation, I will simply outline some of the key things that I took away with me and re-iterate some of the key messages that we need to keep pursuing with as much energy and active effort as we have passion and talk for.

I guess the media response to the prime message for this year’s event was pretty crucial and in all honesty, after the peak of 2010, this year’s strategy was going to need significant prayer-peration.  The key note speaker for our inspiration and equipping times, World Vision India director Jayakumar Christian humbly postulated that God is and always has been the Prime Mover.  God has always been at work amongst the poorest of the poor and our response is secondary.  This was a terrific reminder to me that as important as it is for you and I to take the lead of Jesus and advocate on behalf of those who cannot speak or act for themselves, any response we make has to be in submission to the prime mover.  Submission … I remember enjoying so much a few years back my friend Geoff Moore bounding up to me one morning and proclaiming that submission meant “under the mission”.  Our response to the global poor is ONLY effective if it is always UNDER the mission that God is already at work on.

I have often been amused by Christian mission statements that try to say something profound and marketing savvy when the mission of God the prime mover has always existed and should be chased with our ever renewed fervour.  I was speaking at a rally a few years ago and at the conclusion the associate pastor of the church that the event had been held at walked up to me and aggressively asserted that my message was old news and wouldn’t cut it with a post modern generation.  I remember smiling at him and saying “if you can tell me why a message about loving people with a redeeming love, a love that lifts them up in lieu of us to find new favour with God whatever the cost is no longer something that’s important to anyone then I’m listening”.  I recall being devastated that he walked away.

It would have been easy to feel the same way about the millennium development goals this year. Things have been going OK and the recent Ausaid review was very positive so coming over to passionately about the continuing needs might seem a little inappropriate and as such not a priority this time around?

Having gained a bi-partisan commitment last year to increase Australia’s aid budget to 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2015 which of course is the scheduled final year of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Charter, perhaps the reality is something quite starkly different to the rhetorical question posed in the previous paragraph. Maybe we actually have to work twice as hard and keep at this advocacy more energetically than ever, remembering that the actual goal in order for Australia to play its part in the effort to halve global poverty by 2015 is still 0.7% and that currently it is still only half that, steady at 0.35%. More than this, it just isn’t acceptable that one child dies anywhere in the world just because we didn’t want to feel a bit awkward about repeating ourselves in this supposedly positive ‘climate of change’.

So, I was phenomenally encouraged and as such motivated in an intensely visual but simply profound way, when a 2 metre toilet was literally ‘dumped’ on the grass down the hill from parliament house in order to highlight global poverty issues as they pertain to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

On the Tuesday morning of the event, federal MP’s were invited to join the participants for breakfast provided under the creative mass food provision genius and watchful eye of Thai cooking teacher, legend and humanitarian Khun POO.  Following this scrumptious feast all were asked to join a giant toilet queue to raise awareness for the 2.6 billion people around the world who are still waiting to access a toilet.  Most were good sports and the ripple effect was certainly felt through the offices of ‘sitting’ parlaimentarians.

So much has helped change the life expectancy of children under 5 years old around the globe during this campaign these last few years, however, as National Coordinator of Micah Challenge Australia, John Beckett has rightly been quoted in the media saying; “The links between access to decent sanitation and global deaths are clear - particularly in children under five". "Approximately 25% of the 8.1 million annual child deaths could be prevented by sanitation interventions. That's 2 million kids who could be saved." "Lack of access to a toilet is not only enormously dehumanising, it's literally a matter of life and death. No one in our world should be 'dying for a dunny'," he said. "That's why we are calling the government to increase their aid allocation for water and sanitation to $500 million by 2015."

I was pleased that the vast majority of the media across the board reported the event responsibly and did their best to stay on message.  I know I don’t speak only for me but I for one felt privileged to play my small part in these 4 days of focus and challenge.  I have no other response other than to keep seeking where God IS and asking him to help me BE there. The Micah Challenge Voices for Justice event brings together schools students and retirees, teachers and plumbers, aid workers and Church leaders.  I am energized in my hope and feel I’m not alone in the effort now that I have actually seen what an effective and even measurable grass roots response to a global issue can look like.  People with no political experience can be tutored by caring advocates and hold hundreds of private meetings with politicians in an effort to ensure that global poverty stays on the political agenda, even if, as John Beckett said to the media, “it means resorting to toilet-talk”

Nagging prophets Mr Rudd?? May God bless each one and keep leading the process onward.  This is worthy stuff indeed.

Source acknowledgement for extra info micah challenge australia blog