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Pray through the newspaper, especially the world news section. Befriend the foreigners who live in your city. Develop strong relationships with your church or denominational missionaries.

Ask members who are businessmen to talk about their global involvements. Go to the local college and find out whether there's a group of local "friends of international students." Do the same with the Chamber of Commerce and foreign businessmen.

Ask your high school and college youth what they're studying about global issues. Teach a church class on the biblical basis of mission, tracing global issues from Genesis to Revelation.

Those who want more can find hundreds of mission-related sites on the Internet. Some useful gateways include www.brigada.org, www.christianmissions.net, and www.lausanne.org.

If you want to know more about specific nations or ethnic groups, you might try some of the general search engines (AltaVista, Yahoo!, Northern Light, or Hotbot), or the Joshua Project List of People Group Profiles (www.ad2000.org/peoples/index.htm).

Mission magazines with on-line resources include Evangelical Missions Quarterly, (www.wheaton.edu/bgc/EMIS/emqpg.htm) and the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (www.gospelcom.net/omsc/ibmr.htm).

Apples, salmon, hungry bellies, and empty arms
Yet we can do all this with a patronizing smile, at arms' length. without ever leaving the security of our own turf. Loving our neighbors means something more. It means being vulnerable. It means entering into their pain. When God in Jesus came to live among us. He shared our troubles and felt our hurts. Do we feel the pain of those in other countries?

Globalization has hurt a lot of people. That includes Americans. Last weekend my husband and I drove through the apple orchards of Washington. In spite of their rows of green trees heavy with fruit beside the Columbia river, twenty per cent of those farmers are failing.

Some blame cheaper apples from Mexico and China.

Apple season coincides with salmon season, and we have not had such a glorious run of fish since the 1960s. Yet the commercial fishermen are giving the fish away, or mailing them to state legislators. They can't make a profit. The price is too low. Some blame competition from farm-raised salmon from Chile.

The transitions and readjustments of globalization can hurt Americans. But people in other countries suspect that transnational corporations—most based in America—are reaping the lion's share of the benefits. This breeds a love/hate feeling toward America.

Yong-Hun Jo of Korea, in the article, "Globalization as a Challenge to the Churches in Asia Today" published in the October 2000 issue of the Asian Journal of Theology, says poverty levels in Asian countries have worsened as globalization has bloomed. Although the article's tone is moderate, and recognizes the benefits of a vigorous economy, it also speaks of bankruptcies, destruction of jobs, massive unemployment, a sharp rise in prices and decline in wages, capital flight into tax-free zones, the reduction of public services, environmental degradation, and a growing distance between the rich and the poor. At present 34% of the children under age five in Southeast Asia are under weight, and 50% of the children in South Asia. Half the people in the world live on $2 a day or less. Meanwhile, there is a "race to the bottom," as companies vie to see who can pay workers least, offering fewest benefits. If one country does insist on safeguards for its workers, multinational capital departs for a neighboring state in a matter of hours.

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September (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45