A Sobering Christmas Meditation

I was sitting in a Ruby Tuesdays just outside of Dayton with my family, celebrating christmas with my uncle and my grandmother. My grandma was telling me about my cousin Meg who just graduated from college with her degree in Psychology (congrats Meg!). She told me that she watched the commencement on a DVD that my uncle brought, and she told me that 1,600 people graduated with her, and this is just the winter commencement mind you. She continued to talk about how all of those people are out looking for jobs now, and how scary that must be. Combine all the colleges in the country that are graduating bright young minds and all of them looking for a nice starting salary to start paying off those college loans. I got a little scared knowing that I was going to soon enter that world. I felt slightly comforted by the fact that I have some great opportunities in front of me, but somehow I drove away from lunch with a very un-easy feeling.

As I drove back to South Bend, I decided to catch up on Podcasts, so after a few episodes of The Simply Strategic Show, I decided to dive into some weeks of Mars Hill sermons I missed. God has a way of knowing what we need to hear, exactly when we need to hear it I guess. I'll just list some of the stat's Rob Bell read aloud during the "Calling All Peacemakers II: The Questions of a Kingdom" message. Let's just say, it calmed my fear and instantly put my life in perspective.

6 Billion People in the World

1.) 1.2 Billion people live on roughly 23 cents a day
2.) The wealthiest 1 Billion people (of which people like you and me, I would imagine, are in the very high millions of that group) have an average income of $70 dollars a day.
3.) 1 Billion people live on less than $1 a day
4.) 1-2 Billion poeple live on less than $2 a day
5.) The three wealthiest people in the world are American. Their combined wealth is more than the Gross National Products of all of the worlds least developed countries (over 600 million people)
6.) 12% of the world population uses 85% of it's water
7.) 40% of the world lacks basic sanitation
8.) 1 billion people are without safe drinking water
9.) Americans consume 26 billion liters of bottled water annually
10.) Every 16 seconds someone dies of hunger...2 out of 3 americans are considered overweight
11.) The U.S. GDP is 21.4% of world capital. The U.S. is population is somewhere between 5-6% of the worlds population.
12.) The U.S. spends more money annually on trash bags than nearly half the world spends on all goods combined.
13.) The U.S. consumes an average of 14 pounds of paper products a day. World average...4 pounds.
14.) 80% of the world lives in sub-standard housing, meaning too hot, too cold, diseased area, flooded area. etc. New home size averages:
Ireland-930 sq. ft.
UK-815 sq. ft.
Japan-1000 sq. ft.
US-2349 sq. ft.
15.) 2 billion people in the world have no electricity
16.) 1 billion people cannot sign their name
17.) 1% of people in the world own a computer
18.) 1% of people in the world have a college education
19.) An estimated 22 million people died from preventable diseases in 2001, 10 million were children. By preventable, I mean something a trip to the drugstore or the dcotors office could easily cure.
20.) 4-5 american adults are high school graduates, 1-4 children in the world have to go to work everyday instead of school
21.) When a group of world leaders from developing nations approached an american leader to explore how maybe the U.S. could help, the american leader said "The american lifestyle is not up for negotiation."
22.) 8% of people in the world own a car. 1/3rd of american families own 3 cars.
23.) US consumes 20 million barrells of oil a day (lined up in 1 gallon cans, could circle the earth on the equater almost 6 times.) China consumes 5.6 million barrells, Japan 5.5 million barrells.
24.) The US accounts for 25% of global oil consumption, and we have 3% of it's reserves. The US imported 54% of our oil.
25.) 2/3rds of the worlds oil supplies are in the persion gulf.
26.) 20% of all oil in the US came from the persian gulf.
27.) The US holds 42.8% of weapons worldwide
28.) In 2002, The US spent more on defense than the next 18 biggest spenders combined.
29.) There are 3 muslim holy sites (mecca, medina, and jerusalem. Two are in the persian gulf) We have military bases on two of those holy sites.
30.) The U.S. television show "Baywatch" has been translated into more languages and shown in more countries than any other US entertainment medium.
31.) The cost of the war in Iraq is approaching 1 trillion dollars
32.) The war in Iraq costs america 200 million dollars a day, the GDP of the country of Nigeria for an entire year.

This is sobering

33.) Basic education for everybody on the planet is estimated to cost around 6 billion dollars.
34.) General belief is that water and sanitation for everyone on the planet would cost 9 billion dollars.
35.) Reproductive health for all women, 12 billion. Odds of an american woman dieing in child birth, 1 in 3,700. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 16.
36.) Basic health and nutrition for everyone on the planet would cost 13 billion.
37.) THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING IN AMERICA, AMERICANS SPENT AN ESTIMATED 9 BILLION DOLLARS IN 2006.

I was put in my place today, and given a very large sense of responsibility. God has richly, richly blessed me, my family and friends. I hope we can all find the correct ways to give our blessings back in 2007.