Who has the time?

At a time when all of us (who are privileged enough to have access to blogs) are tackling work, spouse, kids, education, the toilets, the cupboards, exercise, prayer, dinner, the checkbook, car maintenance, bill payments, taxes, friends, church, common courtesy, and so much more, all in one day for that matter, how do we find the brain space and the time to talk to our kids about Social Justice?

Well, maybe we MULTI-TASK?

Maybe we PRIORITIZE?

Maybe we all get new clocks that have a few extra hours between 5 and 8pm?

Or, maybe... just maybe, there could be a new way to talk to our kids about Social Justice.

When I teach high school students, middle school students, elementary school students, church classes and my own homeschool students about the social injustices that are going on around the world and what we can do about them, I often find myself in this dilemma: What if these types of things are too traumatic for them to hear about? What if they are so saddened by the plight of others that it affects their daily lives?

I don't think 14-year-old Austin Gutwein was too traumatized when he learned about AIDS orphans in Africa at the green age of 12. He has raised over $450,000 for them with his own fundraiser called Hoops of Hope. (hoopsofhope.org) And I don't think our kids will be traumatized either, if we teach them the right way...

I actually don't think we can afford to raise another socially-unaware generation.

I was fully 20 years old before I knew that poverty was a cycle. (Up until my first Social Change class in Undergraduate study, I thought that people who were poor were just lazy and shy.) I don't want my kids to find themselves in college with the same old mindsets.

The Word calls the people of God "more than conquerors" in Christ (Romans 8:37), but how can we be more than conquerors if we do not attack our real enemies? And how can we attack them if we don't know what they are?

Instead of raising a generation that discovers a smaller mobile phone that can do cooler tricks, let's raise a generation that discovers how to connect the very rich people of the world with the very poor people of the world in a respectful way that benefits all.

Let's raise a generation that sees the value of policy change in the leadership of every nation, and knows that they are the conquerors who have the power to make that change.

Let's leave a life where we have to spend 60 minutes a day on the treadmill to work off all of the junk food we ate yesterday for a life that is so focused on serving others that health naturally follows. (This one may be just for me, but I had to indulge my own conscience.)

Let's do it today!

Every child is different, and every family is different. My efforts would be insufficient to attempt to tell anyone how to go about teaching his or her own child about anything. But, I will put it out there how I am doing it so that all of you others might be inspired to do it your way!

Today I will find one thing to talk to my kids (ages 4 and 2) about that will inform them and empower them. Perhaps it will be to pray for our Compassion sponsored children in Haiti and their friends and families? Perhaps it will be to look at pictures on the internet of child soldiers in Uganda? Perhaps it will be to view the Tom's shoes website and talk about a kid receiving his or her first pair of shoes at age 10. Or, perhaps it will be something NEW...

(Perhaps one day there will be numerous kids' books and tweens' books and teens' books about Social Justice!... One is in my last post, and 12 more are coming soon!)

There are so many people on the planet who are making positive change, and our children deserve to be empowered to join the ranks among them.