The Biggest Humanitarian Crisis In The World

August 6, 2018 at 5:15 am Leave a comment

Credit: USAID

Katherine Zimmerman, a Middle East expert, has called it the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. In 2014, war broke out in the poverty-stricken nation of Yemen when Iranian-backed rebels stormed and occupied Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa. Since then, a Saudi-led coalition, along with the Yemeni government, has been trying to take back the city. Over 10,000 people have died, half of which have been civilians, as a direct result of the fighting. Indirect casualties are even higher. Save the Children reports that 130 children are dying every day in Yemen. Ms. Zimmerman fears that conditions in the country will continue to deteriorate, explaining, “As the conflict goes on, the people are suffering, and it’s to the point now where we’re looking at a cholera epidemic, and massive risk of famine.”

Sadly, this crisis, half a world away, has been regularly eclipsed by a steady stream of riveting domestic intrigue. But the cries of these victims of war deserve our listening ears and concerned hearts.

One of the most common prayers in the Bible, especially in the Psalms, is that the Lord would hear the cries of the oppressed:

“Hear my cry for help, my King and my God, for to You I pray.” (Psalm 5:2)
“Hear my cry for mercy as I call to You for help, as I lift up my hands toward Your Most Holy Place.” (Psalm 28:2)
“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.” (Psalm 61:1)

The glorious promise is that the Lord does hear the cries of the oppressed:

“The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer.” (Psalm 6:9)
“Praise be to the LORD, for He has heard my cry for mercy.” (Psalm 28:6)
“I love the LORD, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy.” (Psalm 116:1)

If the Lord hears the cries of the downtrodden, we should too. So please join me in lending your prayers to the cries of the Yemenis, asking God to bring this crisis to an end. Pray also that famine and disease would not overtake this land.

In a world where our news cycles regularly revolve around the powerful, it can be all too easy to forget about those on the margins of our societies. The gospel, however, reminds us that we worship a God who marginalized Himself by being born into a poor village called Bethlehem and growing up as a poor carpenter from Nazareth only to become a poor rabbi who was executed by His enemies on a cross. Jesus lived His life as a marginalized man. This man on the margins, however, has promised to use His very marginalization on the cross to draw all people to Himself (cf. John 12:32). This man on the margins has turned out to be nothing less than the very center of history.

Jesus’ method of marginalization should most certainly inform our mission of reaching and loving the world for Him and in Him. So, let’s keep our peripheral vision peeled to see those others miss and love those our world overlooks. For this is what Jesus has done with us.