A sponsored child in Ethiopia wrote ‘Jesus is LORD’ on the wall at home.

Dear brothers and sisters,

In the last couple of decades, there were lots of discussions around the globe on the issues of poverty alleviation and development. People have exhausted all political and economical means but failed to solve the problem of income inequality. And in fact the global wealth gap has become wider and wider. The optimistic belief and confidence relying on human wisdom to solve this issue grows dim and dim, and even displaced by hopelessness and blame.

CEDAR started to use the term ‘TRANSFORMATION” a few years back, and this term has a different meaning than ‘Development’. ‘Transformation’ has a spiritual meaning on bringing multi-dimensional and sustainable changes in relationship and life. We often hear people saying about structural problems and deep-rooted conflicts in our society. Making structural changes does alleviate the symptoms of poverty, but only temporarily. Stubborn heart is the root cause of sin, and this leads to broken relationships with one self, others, the community, the environment and with God. There is a universal consensus that poverty is caused by social injustice. But to believers there is an additional cause of injustice. We all agree and cannot ignore the fact that human sin is the primary cause and a real fact. Thus we define ‘Transformation’ as the change in the direction of life, looking upto and following His direction and path. Believers and non-believers can learn together, observe the continuing works of God, learn His wills and obey His teachings humbly. This is the way that CEDAR tries to serve God in all ministries, which is not solely relying on human wisdom and abilities.

‘You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the LORD, have created it.’ (Isaiah 45:8, NIV). Salvation and righteousness is indivisible. This is the way of God. Human can choose to leave God and use their own way to manage, and even question God or interpret His will arbitrarily based to human’s mindset and system. These are indeed unwise behavior. The Gospel overrides all human system, is unconstrained and exceeds the limitation of man. This is historically proven. The righteousness of God exceedingly surpasses ours.

We pray and wish that all CEDAR’s companions will continue to walk with us, the churches around the world, and the beneficiaries; drawing on the strength from Above and collaborating together to experience life transformation, reverse the injustice situation and inject renewal power into different societies.

Your co-worker in Christ,
CHAN Nim Chung