(A version of this post previously appeared on the Huffington Post Impact blog – http://goo.gl/L3MtiH.)

New reports suggest climate change could push more than 100 million people into poverty in just the next 15 years.  “Climate change hits the poorest the hardest,” says World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, “and our challenge now is to protect tens of millions of people from falling into extreme poverty because of a changing climate.”

The impact is a “two-way street.” Climate change makes it harder for farmers to grow crops, on the one hand, and some farming practices, on the other hand, damage soil, pollute water supplies, and create harmful emissions. But change is happening in small farming communities around the world, especially in communities of faith.  Here are three ways poor communities around the globe are adapting to climate change with the support of ELCA World Hunger.

Cleaner Cooking

Ramoni Rani and her husband, Nor Uttam Hawlader, live in the village of Rajakhali in Bangladesh with their two sons. Like many Bangladeshi farmers, Ramoni and Nor use wood-burning stoves to cook food in their homes. The cost for fuel is steep, and the continued need for it threatens the country’s already-depleted forests. Ramoni, Nor and their children suffered from respiratory illnesses and eye problems because of the carbon emissions and smoke in their homes. In fact, a 2009 profile of Bangladesh from the World Health Organization found that indoor air pollution contributes to nearly 50,000 deaths every year.

“Bondhu chula,” a more efficient cookstove, was developed to combat some of these problems.  But many Bangladeshis have been reluctant to use them, mostly because they don’t know how.  Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh has stepped in by working with over 250 women to help them get familiar with the cookstoves and the positive impact they can have.  For Bangladeshis like Ramoni and Nor, efficient cooking in the home means better health and more money for themselves and a path away from deforestation for their rural community.

In this picture, a man holds biomass pellets similar to those that will be used in the project in Padhar.

Cleaner cooking also makes good economic sense for families in Padhar, India.  To address some of the problems older cookstoves create, Padhar Hospital is helping households get access to smokeless stoves that use biomass pellets. The program will not only train the people to use the stoves but will also help them turn their biomass into profit by providing it to a processing plant.  Since no such plant currently exists in Padhar, one will be built.  Thus the program will provide cleaner stoves, help residents earn income, and create jobs for people in Padhar, all while protecting the environment.

“Green-er” Coffee

Farmers in the Rachuonyo District of Homa Bay County in western Kenya know the daily realities of climate change.  They see it in the shortened periods of rainfall, prolonged dry seasons, and increased flooding that washes away valuable crops and seeds.

Most of the farmers in this region focus their attention and limited investment on subsistence farming, trying to grow enough food to feed their families but often not producing crops that they can use for income.  This leaves them with little savings to weather the kind of volatility that comes with climate change.  One bad season can mean a year of hunger for a smallholder farmer.

One group is working to change that.  Members of the smallholder famers’ collective group, APOKO, partnered with Lutheran World Relief (LWR) in 2014 to launch the Kinda Coffee project.  Farmers in the project learn how to maintain the nutrient levels in soil, prevent erosion and increase water retention at model demonstration plots.  This will not only help them increase their resilience to the droughts and flooding but will also help them protect the environment while earning a sustainable income.  Support for this project from ELCA World Hunger will continue into 2016 and will improve the quality of life for hundreds of households.

Smarter Farming

Thanks to the collective efforts of the last decade, over 90 percent of the world now has access to clean water.  Unfortunately, climate change threatens to undermine much of that progress. Longer, more intense droughts for farmers affect everything from what kinds of crops or animals they can raise to the yield they get from their fields.  When families are already teetering on the edge of poverty, these are serious risks.

But communities in Nicaragua and Bangladesh aren’t just waiting around for something to change.  They are adapting to the changes already sweeping their regions and doing what they can to steward their resources sustainably.

In Bangladesh, air pollution and deforestation aren’t the only problems.  The country faces huge disparities in access to safe water, and more work is needed to provide irrigation to the agriculture industry that employs nearly half of the labor force.  RDRS, a locally-run associate program of the Lutheran World Federation, is helping train farmers in Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), a technique that can reduce by up to 30% the amount of water needed to grow rice.  As a result, they are able to preserve groundwater and reduce risk of contaminating their crops with unsafe water.  And some studies indicate that AWD can actually increase the yields from rice fields, so the process is a win-win.

With an abundance of water on the ground and under the ground, Nicaragua seems like a place where there is enough to go around.  But a 2014 drought – the worst in the country in 40 years – reduced crop yields by more than 70%.  In the area of Somotillo, most of the wells ran dry, and the people worry about another drought down the road.  “In this place,” Pastor Gerzan Alvarez of the Lutheran Church of Faith and Hope (ILFE) in Nicaragua says, “we’re only able to survive.”

With support from LWF and ELCA World Hunger, ILFE is taking steps to manage the crisis.  Since the drought, the community has improved wells in the area, led trainings in proper water usage and management, set up irrigation systems, and planted yard gardens.  Pastor Emperatriz Velasques of ILFE says now, “Each day we’re learning about nature’s behavior, and we need to keep on working and teaching so we can grow our crops with the little water we have and keep home gardens with water from our wells.  This way, we can provide food for the households.”

Policy changes that reduce emissions and change the way we relate to the environment are necessary, long-range solutions to a changing climate, and the recent agreements about climate change and hunger give some hope.  But there is also a lot we can learn from those on the margins, in local communities throughout the world.  In Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and Nicaragua, families are doing what they can to protect their environment and make themselves less vulnerable to the changes that are still to come.

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is program director of Hunger Education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

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Looking for Lenten activities for the home and the church? This is just one sample from 40 Days of Giving, a devotional flip calendar that features leaders in the ELCA reflecting on what it means to be Church in a hungry world. Accompanying this devotional is a six-week study guide that your congregation can use to dig deeper during this season of reflection, repentance and hope. Sign up at www.ELCA.org/40days. You can download the weekly sessions and other resources at http://www.ELCA.org/Resources/Campaign-for-the-ELCA.

“As we journey together through the time God has given us, may God give us

the grace of a welcoming heart and an overflowing love for the new neighbors

among us.”  – ELCA, A Social Message on Immigration, 1998.

Aware of the special challenges refugees, migrants, and displaced persons face, ELCA World Hunger has long supported companions and partners that work with people who have been forced to leave their homes for a variety of reasons.  Partners like Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) are critical actors in this work.

Within days after the terrorist attacks in France, governors throughout the United States proclaimed that they would no longer accept Syrian refugees.  As of November 18, 26 governors had issued such statements.  Legally, of course, governors cannot stop refugees, but they can make it very hard on them, by withholding state funds to help them resettle, by refusing to issue state identification, or by increasing the already rigorous screening process for certain refugees or immigrants.  On November 20, the House of Representatives voted to suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the United States.

This presents a good occasion for recalling some of the reasons Lutherans support this important work.  The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has issued a response to these developments, noting poignantly, “To close the door on resettling Syrian refugees would be nothing less than signing a death warrant for tens of thousands of families fleeing for their very lives.”  But there are other reasons Lutherans continue to accompany immigrants and refugees beyond the dire consequences many of them currently face.  (For some background to a Lutheran view on undocumented immigration, see this earlier post.)

#1 –Remembering who we were

Christian ethics, in general, and Lutheran ethics, in particular, begin with memory.  The Hebrew Scriptures tell a story of our ancient ancestors enslaved in Egypt.  They were strangers in a strange land, but God led them to freedom, and it is this action of God that lays the foundation of their own vocation toward strangers: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). The special concern for widows, strangers, and orphans in the Hebrew Scriptures is rooted in God’s care of the people when they were helpless and landless.

It isn’t an overstatement to say that, for Lutherans, the whole of the moral life is memory.  From a religious perspective, good works aren’t done out of blind obedience or to earn a spot in Heaven; for Lutherans, good works are done out of gratitude for the grace of God that saved us when we could not save ourselves. They are done in memory of God’s ways of acting toward us.  We were wandering spiritually, and God welcomed us, comforted us, and saved us.

Lutherans, too, can look at more recent history of our own displacement.  After World War II, nearly one in six Lutherans in the world was a refugee or a displaced person.  Some found permanent homes in Europe; others languished in camps.  Thanks to advocacy in part on their behalf, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which opened the doors to wandering peoples.  Many displaced Lutherans found homes in the United States because this country opened its doors, even accepting those German Lutherans whose country had been at war with the US.  Once here, the National Lutheran Council and other faith-based agencies were critical in helping the refugees resettle.

Spiritually and historically, we are a wandering people whose lives have often depended on the hospitality of others.

#2 – Seeing who we are

As a white, straight, cisgender male, I cannot once recall being asked to speak for all white people, all cisgender men, or all straight people.  But I can recall numerous times when I have heard other people asked to speak for their entire race, their entire ethnic community, or their entire gender.  This is perhaps one of the most complex and pernicious elements of privilege.  My privilege lets me assume I will always be treated as an individual, rather than as merely a representative of an entire group.

As social media exploded with invective calling for the banning of all Syrian refugees because of the nationality of an alleged Paris terrorist, it was no surprise that my suggestion of increasing surveillance of all men went unheeded.  After all, men represent the vast majority of terrorists both foreign and domestic, men are overwhelmingly responsible for mass shootings in the United States, and men are far and away the perpetrators of violence in the home.  If we are serious about protecting communities from violence, perhaps we should start with policies that circumscribe the freedom of men.

Of course, that won’t happen, because men are still privileged the world over, so their gender is not lifted up as problematic in the same way that ethnicity or nationality might be. Those in the center have the privilege of being treated as individuals, while those on the margins are viewed merely as a group.  We saw a similar dynamic at work in regards to anti-Asian racism during World War II.  While German Americans and Italian Americans had numerous exemptions from internment that kept their population in camps very low, Japanese Americans had virtually no exemption from internment and were imprisoned with little question, despite the fact that all three countries of origin were at war with the United States.  Those of European descent were treated as individuals and separately interrogated, whereas those of Japanese descent were treated as a group, with few individual considerations.

For Lutherans, this type of discrimination is not merely problematic; it’s heretical. It is a denial of the foundational belief that humans are created in the image of God.  This doesn’t mean that we naively assume everyone is a good person.  Created in God’s image doesn’t mean “nice.”  It means that each and every human being is a creature with dignity, worthy of our care.  This transcending identity – image of God – is expressed through a variety of penultimate identities – racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, and many more. But our foundational identity as images of God grounds each in dignity. What makes a person worthy of our care, our hospitality, our protection?  Their very creation in the image of God. This is privilege that is universal.

This doesn’t mean we have to like everyone.  Nor does it mean we cannot punish persons when they do wrong. But it does mean we must respect their dignity, and doing so demands that we see what lies beneath their other identities, particularly when they differ from our own.  It means a willingness to hear their story, to let them speak, to see them as more than just a Syrian or just a Muslim or just a Christian. It demands an openness to seeing God through them. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

#3 – Becoming whom we are called to be

It is natural to feel afraid after events like those of last week.  But, for Lutherans, fear cannot be what marks our behavior toward neighbors.  Lutherans believe that God has set us free from sin and death so that we can serve the neighbor confidently and boldly.  We have life so that we may serve our neighbors.  Presiding Bishop of the ELCA Elizabeth Eaton puts it well:

Even in the face of evil, we remain confident that the good news of Jesus Christ liberates us and gives us the freedom and courage to discover and boldly participate in what God is up to in this world…We are not naïve about possible new threats of terrorism, but denying refuge to thousands of desperate people is not who we are as Christians, nor will it guarantee our security.

Martin Luther was also clear on what courage in service of the neighbor means.  In 1527, Luther responded to the question of “whether one may flee from a deadly plague.” His response was straightforward:

A man who will not help or support others unless he can do so without affecting his safety or his property will never help his neighbor.

Life together involves calculated risk.  Lutherans are called to live in love of the neighbor, not in fear of the neighbor.  There is no truly “safe” service. Accompanying our neighbors means walking down dark roads, facing with them situations of violence and oppression and taking risks that things will not go as planned.  We do all this in awareness that a life lived in isolation and fear of one another is not a life worth living.

(Of course, it is necessary to point out here the rigorous screening process each refugee must go through before settling in the United States.  The process is lengthy and involves several agencies.  The recent fear of refugees is more reactionary than reasonable.)

So, faithful people will continue to accompany their displaced neighbors.  LIRS and other agencies will continue their important work, and ELCA World Hunger will continue to support it.  But this will get harder as irrational fear continues to snake through our communities.

You can help.  Be an advocate.  At the water cooler, in the classroom, during coffee hour, from the pulpit and around the table, remember who we are and whom we are called to be.  We Lutherans stand in a long line of people whose existence has depended on God continually loving them despite their failings, on a Messiah opening his arms to those who crucified him, and on a government extending welcome to fearful exiles displaced by tyranny.

We are a migrant people, saved by one whose first human experience was escaping violence with his mother and father (Matt. 2:13-15).

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D. is program director for Hunger Education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

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I wish I could say that all the advice I have received has been profound and meaningful.  But the best advice I received in the late 1980s (indeed, the only advice I can remember from that particular time period) is “hoverboards don’t go on water.”  Needless to say, I have yet to find occasion when that little nugget might be useful.  But there was a time when my hope was built on nothing less than floating over sidewalks, self-lacing sneakers wrapped ’round my feet, while dodging holograms from every sign and marquee.

Still, not everything in Back to the Future II was that far-fetched.  We have Google glass, for instance, and video conferencing, and long-deceased rock stars performing concerts as holograms.  (Thankfully, $50 Pepsi is still a ways off.)

Today, movie lovers across the country will celebrate the trilogy that gave us Doc Brown, flux capacitors and the hope for flying cars.  Much has changed since Marty McFly first climbed inside a Delorean, but much has remained the same.  Here are some quick stats to see how far we’ve come from 1985, when Back to the Future was first released, and how far we still have to go as a nation.

Poverty rate in the United States

1985 — 14%

2015 — 14.8%

Poverty threshold-family of four in the United States (adjusted to 2015 dollars)

1985 — $24,300.91

2015 — $24,250

Federal minimum wage (adjusted to 2015 dollars)

1985 – $7.41

2015 – 7.25

Median household income (adjusted to 2015 dollars):

1985 — $61,332.76

2015 – $53,657

Children’s (under age 18) poverty rate in the US:

1985 — 20.5%

2015 — 22%

Income inequality

1985 – The poorest 20% of all families received 4.8% of total income. The wealthiest 20% received 43.1% of all income.  The top 5% wealthiest Americans received 16.1% of all income

2015 – The poorest 20% of all families received 3.6% of total income last year. The wealthiest 20% received 48.9% of all income.  The top 5% wealthiest Americans received 20.8% of all income

*Inflation-adjusted dollars were calculated online through the Bureau of Labor Statistics COPI Inflation Calculator.

*Statistics for 2015 are drawn from the most up-to-date data available, which in many cases reflects 2014 numbers. 

Ryan P. Cumming is program director of hunger education for ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

The hungry.  Hungry people. 

If you examine the structure of either of these references, you’ll notice that the primary emphasis is on the condition of being hungry.  In the case of the hungry, the word “people” isn’t even in the realm of consciousness.  “The hungry” serves as a defense mechanism, a way to categorize something that is undesirable and put it on a shelf at a safe distance so that we don’t have to feel a personal connection.  “The hungry” are simply out there…somewhere.  Nameless, faceless, and seemingly not even human or at least not deserving enough of a human reference. 

Photo by Paul Jeffrey/ACT International

Hungry people.  On the scale of objectification, this is better.  At least we are talking about people here, though again the emphasis is not on people but rather the condition of being hungry.  People comes last, and so psychologically our emphasis is still on fixing a condition rather than serving someone just like us—same age, same gender, same station in life relatively speaking—who happened to be born in a community or country where there are extremely limited resources. 

Let’s see if we can do better.  Okay, here’s one more attempt: 

People who are hungry.  Simply put, people come first.  We’re not trying to help feed a nameless breed of beings known as “the hungry” (akin to “the infected”).  We’re not trying to serve our neighbors, the “hungry people”—still defined by their condition rather than their self-identity as human beings.  Rather, we are ministering to people—people who happen to be hungry but are people first nonetheless.  They are Kennedy Symphorian, a skinny 15-year-old boy I met years ago in Tanzania who had HIV and whose non-traditional family eeked out a meager living and survived on assistance from an organization that received support from ELCA World Hunger dollars.  They are the children begging for handouts on the streets of Nicaragua, some of whom work the streets alone during the day while their parent(s) crowd into a tightly packed school bus and ride off to work in a sweatshop.  They are nameless strangers we meet on our streets who browse trash cans for food scraps, approach our rolled-up windows at a stoplight (maybe we look at them, maybe not), sleep on a doorstep in 15-degree weather.  They are us only with fewer resources and a harder way, trying to survive. 

We cannot afford to talk about people in any way less than the dignified manner all souls should be afforded.  We are all people first and foremost.  We are Christians, Muslims, writers, janitors, men, women, fast-food workers, nurses, crossing guards, students, tailors…we are who we are, defined by our humanity and our relationship to God. 

Let’s put people first instead of resorting to comfortable, overused phrases that define people by their condition.  Maybe next time you encounter “the other”—that perfect stranger who asks you for money because she probably really needs it—you’ll ask her name and be able to talk about the time you met Rhonda rather than “some homeless woman.”