Christmas Greetings To World Vision's Global Health, Nutrition and HIV CoP!

A Christmas greeting from Tom Davis, WVI Sustainable Health Sector Lead:

Dear World Vision Global Health, Nutrition and HIV Community of Practice,

What a year! I am hoping all of you are preparing to take some well-deserved time off over the Christmas season. My wife Judy and I will be visiting our kids in North Carolina the week of Christmas, and then taking some time to just relax before heading back to Geneva.

I enjoy Christmas for the family time and traditions, and times of awesome worship. But I’ve been thinking recently how easy it is to sanitize the whole Christmas story, to focus on the baby Jesus in a manger stall in Jerusalem, a place where “all is calm, all is bright,” but where – only a chapter later – Herod initiates the Massacre of the Innocents in his paranoia and fear that another King will take his throne. Belief in God’s story can be powerful, liberating to some and dangerous to others. Indeed, a recent story on National Public Radio in the US discussed a version of the Bible that was put together in the 1800s – a “slave Bible” that was used by British missionaries to convert and educate slaves which omitted 90% of the Old Testament and about 50% of the New Testament – in an attempt to remove passages that could have prompted rebellion (e.g., Galatians 3:28, “there is neither … bond nor free…”). The power that God’s story can have in prompting liberation ‘comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable (and those who collude with them).’

Your work is part of that liberation. Your work lifts a burden off the poor, especially since one of the chief causes of people falling into extreme poverty is catastrophic health costs. I do think we need to do a better job in terms of framing the work that we do within God’s story of liberation and salvation, and reminding people of the promises that God has made to us. I have told some of you about a small study that I did in Bolivia a few years back where we found that mothers who believed God’s promise in Isaiah 65:20 – that God wants all children to survive and will make that happen – were about 15 times more likely to have a well-nourished child. Should we be surprised that belief may save lives? Is this an example of the “faith that can move mountains?”

It is my great pleasure to be working among such gifted and passionate colleagues in World Vision. In this coming year, I’m hoping that we can do even more to integrate the different pieces of our work, including those life-saving promises from God and the hope that they bring, into our approach and models. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas season, and are able to reflect on all the good that you have helped bring about in World Vision through your work!