There’s over 7 billion people in the world; about 320 million living in the United States. We get “glassy-eyed” over such large numbers. I recently discovered an annual report that takes those large numbers and makes them easier to understand. It’s called the “State of the Village Report.” It imagines the world as a 100 person village and then statistically describes its makeup.
Here is our ethnic breakdown: 60 are Asians, 14 are Africans, 12 are Europeans, and 8 are from Central/South America. There are just 5 from the US and Canada and only 1 is from Australia/New Zealand.
Communicating with one another would be a chore: 14 speak Mandarin, 8 speak Hindi, 8 speak English, 7 speak Spanish, 4 speak Russian, and 4 speak Arabic. That’s about ½ our village. The other half speaks an assortment of over 200 different languages.
This is how we worship: 33 are Christians, 22 are Muslims, 15 are Hindus, and 6 are Buddhists. Ten have other religions and 14 sleep-in every week, they are Agnostics or Atheists.
Here is a few other numbers that describe the people in our village: 50 can’t read, 50 are malnourished, 33 don’t have safe drinking water, and 25 have no electricity. Amongst the 100 of us we would have 42 radios, 24 televisions, 14 telephones, 7 computers, and 7 cars.
There definitely are some “haves” and “have-nots” in our little town: The 5 of us from the US own a third of the wealth and the bottom 33 own just 3% of the village’s wealth.
What do you think of our little village? Here are a couple of my observations:
We are blessed. That is unarguable. We live our day-to-day life with more than virtually anyone else does in the world. We have freedoms and opportunities most only dream about. Our blessings, however, can easily become cursings. We love our comfort and we love our idols. We are still quite capable of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator.
Obviously, most of our neighbors have a much more difficult go of it. How can we help? What can we do? These are questions that should be before us all our lives.
Lastly, what would God have us do regarding our faith? About 1/3 of our village claims Jesus; and that’s probably a generous number. Even if correct, the majority of our town doesn’t know Him. That should be a daily burden of ours. Is it?
An additional piece of information for everyone that should encourage and motivate—the Mayor of our village is none other than Jesus himself. He greatly cares for all the villagers; even those who don’t vote for Him. Let’s get out there and campaign for Him. We want our village church to grow.
Pastor Rich Hamlin
April 23, 2015