Outside the bubble

I have been an avid follower of U.S. and world news for as long as I can remember. I have always strived to keep myself informed of the happenings of the world, however, it is easy to get lost within the bubble of our home and community and forget about the rest of the world and all the problems in it.

When I first came to Transy, I was amazed at the immersive community experience which is referred to as the Transy Bubble for obvious reasons. Soon a month had passed, then two, then three, and before I knew it the semester was over. During this time I had been an active member of my church, school, and various other activities on or near campus, but I had lost track of the outside world. When I came back after Christmas break I realized that I had forgotten my duty to keep up to date with current events in the world. I rekindled my interest and began again to watch the news, read the paper, and generally try to maintain a level of international awareness.

It was only recently that I had a realization of how important it is as Christians to be mindful of the needs of the whole world and attend to them. I have always been taught the importance of compassion and caring towards everyone and I had always given to Disciples relief funds such as the Week of Compassion but I now realized just how important to our Christianity international mindedness was. Since then I have made a conscious effort to apply a Christian mindset of, ‘What can I do to help?’ to problems I learn about all over the globe.

Recently, Cyclone Nargis hit the South Asian country of Myanmar with wind speeds topping out at over 150 mph. More than 130,000 people were killed by the cyclone, hundreds of thousands more injured, and over a million people are now homeless as a result. The global community immediately tried to join the relief effort but the military rulers resisted. Problems such as the starvation and death from injuries climbed exponentially, so foreign relief was finally allowed to come into the country. I immediately talked to my minister who agreed to take up a special relief offering that would go to Week of Compassion, who was already involved in the area. I was able to speak to the congregation about the crisis, and that Sunday we raised over a thousand dollars which went to buy medical supplies as well as the materials required to begin rebuilding the region and providing shelter for the million displaced people.

I feel that this experience has reinforced my belief that as Christians, we are called to serve all those in need and that part of our mission is to remain globally vigilant and help where it is needed.