World Vision ACT:S is a network of students committed to exploring what our faith says about poverty and injustice, using creative activism to bring issues to life and change hearts, and using our voices to advocate.
If you are not already a member of ACT:S, we encourage you to check out our About page and join the ACT:S network for bi-weekly e-mail updates.
Below are the latest stories, resources, and campaigns. If you would like to contribute, e-mail acts@worldvision.org.
Invisible Children filmmaker takes on malaria! Sign up for free "When the Night Comes" DVD
03/02/2010Create awareness and save lives by screening "When the Night Comes" by Bobby Bailey (Invisible Children filmmaker) and the United Nations Foundation. World Vision ACT:S is proud to offer this DVD as a FREE resource for your Night of Nets event!
Sign up below and we will mail you a "When the Night Comes" DVD and Night of Nets resources for creating awareness, raising resources (just $6 provides a life-saving bednet!), and effective advocacy on your campus, church, or community.
Lent Study Week 5: A Hole in the Church
03/15/2010
We are now entering Week 5 of Lent, and below is part of the study for Week 5. You are not too late to get started! Make sure to download the entire study here.
The ‘Church that Cares’ By Richard Stearns
In 1999, Pastor John Thomas heard a shocking statistic at a local minister’s meeting. Forty-four percent of the population of Masiphumelele, a shantytown slum community of black migrants, embedded near the tiny seaside town of Fish Hoek, South Africa, were HIV positive. This high percentage stunned Pastor Thomas, whose predominantly white church of about 315 members had little awareness of the impact of AIDS in their own backyard. Just five years after the end of apartheid, relations between black and white were still strained in South Africa, a country that now had more HIV infections than any nation in the world. Thomas was provoked. How can I face God on judgment day, he thought, realizing I’ve done nothing about the greatest problem that lies on our doorstep?
The troubled pastor decided to share his heart with his church—and nothing has been the same since. Fish Hoek Baptist Church is now known around town as “the church that cares.” Today, almost ten years later, the AIDS ministry of Fish Hoek Baptist Church, known as Living Hope, has a budget of $1.2 million a year and a full-time staff of 147. By comparison, the church’s annual budget is just $300,000 with a staff of 10. The AIDS ministry now dwarfs the church in size and scope.
A Powerful Image: Malaria, Faith and Justice
03/12/2010
By: Brittany Peters, Faith and Justice Fellow for World Vision ACT:S
Have you ever heard a story and not been able to get the images out of your head? Have you ever seen something, and realized you can no longer just stand by idly and not respond? As I walked through the crowded halls of a village hospital in Malawi, Africa, I was overwhelmed by all that I was seeing. People lined the hallways, medicine was scarce, medical professionals were few and the need was great. In Malawi, a country of 13 million people, there are only about 260 medical doctors. The nurse I was walking with could see the shock on my face, and responded, “If you think this is bad, just wait until malaria season comes.” She then proceeded to tell me a story, and the image of this story has stuck with me for a long time.
Raise awareness during your Night of Nets with t-shirts!
03/11/2010
As you know...Malaria kills more than 2,000 children everyday!
WE HAVE T-SHIRTS to help raise awareness about this statistic for your Night of Nets! Our friends at Stuph Clothing have created really cool Night of Nets t-shirts that you can order for your event. Please order soon, as they need 3 weeks to prepare your order. The shirts are $7 – but you can also sell them for more to raise money for life-saving bednets!
Messiah College: Reflections form the Human Wrong Campaign
03/10/2010
By Sarah Plumadore, Messiah College
I sat in chapel with the word “sold” plastered on my shirt and yet I sang, “my chains are gone I’ve been set free, my God my savior has ransomed me.”
I realized that while God has ransomed me from the curse of my sins (and I, in no way, wish to belittle the incredible and simply awesome nature of that redemptive act), I have never been chained -- literally chained, the way Maya had.
Maya, the girl whose story my shirt represents, was sold by her own mother, taken across the boarder from Myanmar to Thailand, and forced to sell flowers every day. She was 8 years old.
I was struck by this incongruity; that I could joyfully sing “my chains are gone, I’ve been set free” and yet children like Maya are sold every day and forced into lives of slavery – chained. As I looked around, I saw other participants of the campaign singing with hands lifted, totally immersed in this act of worship, proclaiming their own freedom in Christ. Yet their shirts screamed: Forced, Threatened, Indebted, Seduced, Deceived. Each shirt represents yet another child trafficked into slavery.
