Valuing The LeastSample

Indigenous Rights vs Rip-off Profits

We know that God created every person and He desires to see them valued as His children. But many indigenous peoples have not experienced this affirmation. They are marginalized and pushed aside in order for others to benefit. Consider your response to this injustice.

We are surrounded by inequity in our world today. Nowhere is that more obvious than in how indigenous peoples are treated by governments and industry. The global church and the Christian mission enterprise is responding in love and acting against these injustices. Explore the layers of indigenous life through today’s Missiographic. Know what’s going on around the world such as:

-         In Indonesia, among the Semunying Jaya indigenous people.

-         In Panama, where the indigenous people were legally granted compensation 42 years after their territorial rights were violated in a hydroelectric project.

-         Around the world, where indigenous peoples and extractive frontiers overlap.

The exciting news is that among the people where frontier missions are at work, the Bible is being translated into their languages, the people are being given dignity and hope, and indigenous people are being educated about their rights.

Personal Reflection: Do you know much about the indigenous peoples or first nations in your own country? Start there. Find out who lived on the land you now call home and what has become of them in this new global economy. Then as you learn about them and how to honor, serve, and partner with them, consider how you can take what you have learned and expand that globally. How can you bless indigenous people around the world through your everyday decisions? Remember that your consumer, business, and ministry decisions can be part of bringing justice and value to people who have long been pushed aside.

Prayer: Dear God, help my heart to ache for indigenous peoples globally who have suffered so much from hundreds of years of injustice. Sometimes I reduce these fellow men and women to abstract ideas or generalizations. Help me to see them as people who have families, dreams, and traditions. Help me understand what they have suffered and what they have accomplished. Also help me to understand how You are working among the indigenous peoples of the world. With that understanding, now give me direction on how I should respond. Amen