Many of us wear the white armband with just the single word ONE. The armband signifies our common goal, united as ONE to make “poverty history.” The Diocese of Arizona is committed to that cause and has an active Committee that is working in the Diocese to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Those goals include ending poverty, feeding the hungry, ensuring clean water for the thirsty, providing health care and education, reducing child mortality, defeating HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and being good stewards of God’s creation. Meeting the goals of the MDGs may seem to be an overwhelming task. The newspapers each day are full of stories about food shortages and humanitarian crisis in many parts of the globe. Can we defeat poverty? Can we eliminate HIV/AIDS? Not by ourselves, but each ONE of us together can.

So what can ONE person do?

Here is just a sample of what happened just in April to meet the MDGs in the Diocese.

The Youth Group at St. Matthew’s in Chandler raised $1500 in one day, between services, the money will be given to the following groups:

• Charity Water - www.charitywater.org  - a non-profit that brings clean and safe drinking water into impoverished communities.
• Heifer International - www.heifer.org - a non-profit whose goal is to end world hunger and poverty through self-reliance and sustainability
• Beads for Life - www.beadforlife.com - beads for life goal is to eradicate extreme poverty by creating bridges of understanding between impoverished Africans and concerned world citizens. Ugandan women turn colorful recycled paper into beautiful beads, and people who care, open their hearts, homes and communities to buy and sell the beads.
• Invisible Children - www.invisiblechildren.com - a non-profit organization dedicated to building awareness and helping the plight of child soldiers.
• Episcopal Relief and Development - www.er-d.org - an Episcopal agency that strengthens communities around the world by fighting poverty, alleviating hunger and responding to disasters.
• Compassion International - www.compassion.com - a child advocacy ministry that provides food, shelter, education and health care

Theresa Bennett from St. Marks Church, Mesa organized and held a wedding dress fashion show and reception inspired by the movie 27 Dresses. The models were her friends and classmates from high school.  The fashion show raised $6,500 for the St. Andrew’s Clinic, Nogales. www.standrewsclinic.org. The clinic at St Andrew’s mission is to provide free medical treatment for disabled children of impoverished families in Mexico. http://azdiocese.org/dfc/newsdetail_2/289

A U2charist was celebrated at the Church of the Nativity in Scottsdale –a Eucharist service that uses the music of the rock band U2 to raise awareness and raise money for the MDGs. They raised $7,000, all of which is going to the Peace and Justice Center, www.peacejusticecenter.org, to install water purification systems in two impoverished rural villages in Mexico.

Can we change the world? If each one of us decided yes I can make a difference, there is nothing that cannot be done. “If at this moment in history a few million generous Christians blessed with material abundance dare to join hands with the poor around the world, we will decisively influence the course of world history”. (Ronal Sider)  Bryant Myers of World Vision writes, “I understand Christian witness to include the declaration of the gospel by life…. By life I refer to the fact that Christians are the message.  We are the sixty-seventh book of the Bible.  People read our lives, our actions and our words and believe they know what being a Christian means”.

If you want to find out more about these MDG projects or others, or you have an MDG story you want to share, you can e-mail the Diocesan MDG Committee in care of: myra@trinitycathedral.com. For other MDG stories around the diocese check out the Diocesan MDG Website at http://mdg.azdiocese.org.