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A UMNS Feature
By Tim Tanton*
5:00 P.M. Jan. 11, 2013 | MANILA
Liberato C. Bautista autographs copies of his book at Philippine Christian University in Manila. A UMNS photo by Harry Leake.
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God, our protector and source of hope, help us to remember that
wealth is often simply the flip side of poverty and exploitation
elsewhere in the world. Give us the strength to recognize our lives are
inextricably tied with those struggling to find freedom from
trafficking. Amen.
With the deadline moving closer for the international community to
achieve significant goals to relieve human suffering, the Rev. Liberato
Bautista decided he had to take action.
“When I was looking at the Millennium Development Goals, I said, ‘…these goals are not going to be (implemented). We have to start praying for the implementation because they are too important to be neglected,’” he recalled.
The United Nations developed the Millennium Development Goals
to focus the world’s attention on reducing poverty, protecting the
vulnerable, decreasing the numbers of mothers and babies who die in
childbirth, and achieving other steps by 2015.
Bautista, the United Methodist Board of Church and Society’s
executive representative to the United Nations, put together a prayer
guide with contributions from writers around the world. The result was
“Meditations and Devotions on the Millennium Development Goals,” which
was launched in February 2012. It has taken on new significance as
another year passes and the 2015 deadline nears.
“This book … helps provide a moral construct through which we see
that these eight goals are not just national and governmental goals,
but nearer the core of the Christian gospel — the Christian gospel of
justice and peace and wholeness and fullness of life,” Bautista said.
The book is extraordinary because it brings together the voices of
people from around the world who are “from the base,” said the Rev. Rex
Reyes, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the
Philippines. Most of the contributors are people “from the roots of the
grass,” doing what they can for a better world, he said.
The book is “very Methodist,” Reyes said. It is guided primarily by
The United Methodist Church’s social teachings. “It saddens me that the
voices of the indigenous people don’t seem to come out,” he said,
adding that perhaps they will for a future project.
“This book is a trailblazing effort of a faith trying to make itself
heard,” Reyes said. It “feeds us spiritually and convicts our social
consciousness.
“For me, I have the book on my table as a daily source of nurture from now on.”
A warning
“Today, 50,000 people continue to die daily because of poverty,”
said Norma Dollaga, chair of the Philippines Annual Conference’s board
of church and society. In the last quarter, 4.5 million families in the
Philippines went hungry.
“The book is a warning,” she said. “ … It will disturb us and fill
our hearts with longing to see … justice.” It is also an invitation to
follow our faith and love our neighbor, and a reminder that “there is
no holiness but social,” she said.
The book took three years to compile, Bautista said. He said he
first considered doing a 60-day devotional guide, but as he traveled
around the world and invited 300 to 400 people to contribute, he ended
up with enough material for 117 days. The devotional guide approach was
inspired by the Ilocano version of The Upper Room that his mother read
when Bautista was growing up in rural Sanchez Mira town in northern
Philippines.
Bautista’s career has reflected his ongoing concern for the poor and
marginalized, starting from the days when he and his wife were
activists and church youth leaders during the difficult years of the
military regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.
“My wife and I were both student activists and national United
Methodist Youth Fellowship officers during the hardest time in the
political and national life of the Philippines,” he said. “And we
struggled with how to deal with the immense poverty of this country,
and yet, (it has an) abundance of resources. Therefore, the unequal
distribution of wealth is one that would (be) glaring in one’s eyes
when you deal with issues in the Philippines.”
The Millennium Development Goals are a way to raise the faith
community’s awareness to those types of issues, he said. He refers to
them in one sense as “minimum development goals” to lift those who are
in extreme poverty into regular poverty.
Political will … and prayer
Governments have shown a lack of political wisdom and courage in
working for the goals, he said. At the same time, “political will is
welling up from people to better their lives for sustainability, to
better their lives for mental health and public (health), to better
their lives with respect to the eradication of hunger and poverty.”
His response, he said, is to lift the eight goals up in the context
of prayer, with an emphasis on Micah 6:8. The first three goals relate
to seeking justice, the second set relates to loving mercy, and the
last two relate to walking humbly with God.
The Board of Church and Society published an initial 4,000 copies of
the book. Proceeds from the sale of the $7.95 book will support The
United Methodist Church’s Imagine No Malaria campaign, the
denomination’s Global AIDS Fund and relief and rehabilitation efforts
in the Philippines from the typhoons that visit the country year-round.
The book (ISBN 978-1-4507-9931-7) can be ordered online.
*Tanton is executive director of content at United Methodist Communications.
News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.