Goal Zero

I was sitting with my friends on a local bus, waiting (as we do in Africa) for the driver to appear, when a truck stopped nearby. On the rear window was the bumper sticker, “Goal Zero.”

I like random questions, so I asked what situation would make achieving ‘zero’ a goal? There were six of us on the bus and answers started coming.

“Zero babies and mothers dying in childbirth, zero women and children being beaten; zero hunger; zero girls being circumcised; zero war; zero refugees; zero malnutrition; zero corruption; zero girls dropping out of school; zero child marriages; zero girls being sent to the Middle East and Asia and abused; zero malaria, zero TB, zero poverty, zero AIDS, zero rape, zero persecution...”

The answers stopped and there was a profound silence in the air. This is the world we live in. What started as a joke, challenged us all. In reality, none of these statistics are even close to zero. Can I even imagine a world where these zeros really exist? No. I lost my idealism a long time ago. It’s somewhere in another part of Africa.

After a prolonged silence, I contributed the shallow statement of “Zero mistakes in my language ability,” at which the others laughed politely and the pressure lifted. But I can’t let it go. Why shouldn’t we live in a world like this?

There’s a couple I know who have recently decided to follow Jesus. They were Muslim. Their family took away their children because of their change in faith. They say their main prayer is that their children also find Jesus. They say this new faith is worth this momentary trial and they know God is taking care of their children, even though they can’t be with them. I can’t stop thinking about this either. 

Last summer a group of people were praying and fasting for unreached people groups in the Horn of Africa. They were challenged to ask God to do something that only He could do. A woman prayed and said: “Wouldn’t it be amazing if there could be one million people praying for the Horn at the same time?”

Could you be one of these people committed to praying for the 100 million people in the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti?  The goal is not the numbers. The goal is more prayer. So pray and be one in a million.

By a worker on the Horn