Justice Mission A Viedo-Enhanced Curriculum Reflecting the Heart of God for the Oppressed of the World

THE JUSTICE MISSION 1 OPPRESSION STUFF - List-making setup for brainstorming; video playback; The Justice Mission video cued to Oppression; Personal Inventory sheets, pencils or pens. GATHERING - Brainstorm: Compile and rate a list of sources that give us information about the world. THE BIG IDEA - Discussion: Defining oppression. - Video-driven Discussion: Oppression OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS - Bible Study: Isaiah 1:10-17 REFLECTION - Personal Inventory:What's most important? ACTION - WebSite: visit ijm.org/JusticeMission for more about the nature of injustice - Dig: mass media survey - Journal: Personal Journaling THE JUSTICE MISSION I I 20 I I oppression THIS SESSION When C.S. Lewis began explaining Christian faith to his post-Christian culture, he chose the notion of unfairness because everyone knows how it feels to be treated unfairly. We've all been bullied by someone stronger. We've all been lied to, tricked, cheated, and fleeced. And no one likes it, not a tiny bit. In a surprising twist, unfairness generates such deep resentment that many people end up doing to others what was done to them. It's impossible to find the logic behind hurting people-not because they hurt us but because someone else hurt us. There is no logic; it's unfair, but there it is. Oppressors use lies and force to take what rightly belongs to someone else. That, in a nutshell, is injustice. Injustice is woven into the fabric of life. Open a news magazine, turn on your television; oppressors are there. In fact, most people are numb to it. Joseph Stalin, who ordered the killing of millions, is credited with the notion that the death of one person is a tragedy, but the death of thousands is a statistic. That's numbness. Who has what it takes to look at global oppression without flinching? Not many. Not me. It's too big. I feel too small. I suspect you feel that way too. And I think the kids we serve have grown up more or less expecting injustice; more or less accepting injustice as a statistical probability. This is a problem. Here's a solution. We took four American kids to meet individuals who are the victims of oppressors. Ben, Charissa, Lindsay, and Trever are eyewitnesses to injustice. While we looked over their shoulders these four looked in the eyes of a girl who was forced into prostitution when she should have been in seventh grade. They met a boy whose 10th-grade year was interrupted when he was forced out of school to roll beedi cigarettes for a loan shark. These are not statistics, they're tragedies, and there are a lot more like them. Why India? We took Ben, Charissa, Lindsay, and Trever there because it was convenient timing. Consequently, you're seeing only what we saw. We're not saying this is the only-or even the worst-oppression in the world. We could have visited dozens of other places in India and hundreds, if not thousands, of locations around the globe. There's no political violence in these videos, no forced relocation, no ethnic cleansing, no crooked cops, dishonest soldiers, corrupt judges, or paramilitary terrorism. We went to India for 10 days and this is what we found. Truth be told, it hasn't been that long since all this oppression and more was common in North America. Oppression is every place. So, no finger pointing. Except at oppressors. Whatever they look like and wherever they live, they're the bad guys. God, who is enormously tolerant of failure, mistakes, slips, backslides, and screwups, is pointedly, passionately intolerant of oppression. That's what we want your kids to get in this session. They already know what God loves. We want them to start thinking about what God hates. GATHERING Brainstorm: Compile and rate a list of sources that provide information about the world. [ ASK SOMEOHancock, Jim is the author of 'Justice Mission A Viedo-Enhanced Curriculum Reflecting the Heart of God for the Oppressed of the World' with ISBN 9780310243779 and ISBN 0310243777.