Five years ago, a biblical prophecy became particularly pertinent to Scott Sundberg and his family. The little child who led them was Sundberg's older son Leif, then 5, whose "prophetic voice" seemed intended to change his father's behavior-and destined to change his life.
About a year later, Sundberg, his wife Wendy and their two sons left Southern California for what he calls a "cross-cultural experience" in Lancaster, Pa., where he became communications director for Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS).
Speaking at Bluffton University Nov. 9, Sundberg discussed how disasters affect the poor and how an Anabaptist perspective of helping one's neighbor impacts the response to helping them.
His connection with those issues began taking shape one day in September 2005, soon after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, as he was taking Leif to kindergarten.
Sundberg said he turned on the car radio for a quick news update, then mentioned to his son that another hurricane was headed toward the coast. "Are more people going to die?" was the unexpected question that came back. "I don't know where he got that," recalled Sundberg, explaining that he and his wife didn't watch much television and hadn't talked about Katrina with their sons.
Answering the question, he said there would probably be more deaths, which brought a follow-up: "Will God make more people for there?" Another "yes" answer raised yet another question: "What about the babies?" But when Sundberg suggested praying for the children, Leif was done questioning. "No, Dad, we need to go," he said. "We need to move down there and take care of the babies."
"In less than a year, guess where I was?" Sundberg asked the Bluffton audience. "A little childlike faith can help us scrape away the clutter" that prevents offering aid to neighbors.
He said he has heard churches use Jesus' comment in Matthew 26, "The poor you will always have with you," as an excuse for not helping the disenfranchised living at society's margins. However, "to say Jesus is discounting the poor is definitely missing the point," Sundberg added, citing Luke 4, where Christ says the Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to bring good news to the poor, as well as his "greatest commandment," to love God and everyone else.
Similarly, when disasters strike, excuses for not helping are often less about the disaster and more about the affected poor-their supposed laziness and lack of faith bringing God's judgment, for instance, Sundberg said. He related a post-Katrina story in New Orleans about a local pastor's proclamation that the hurricane represented judgment on the city. But Katrina's impact on the French Quarter was relatively light and, a few weeks later, Hurricane Rita wiped out the pastor's church. "Rain falls on the just and the unjust," he said.
Finding those easy excuses negates the need for meaningful action, Sundberg continued, pointing out that the poor and marginalized actually are the majority of the world's population.
"The work we do has taken me to places I never thought I would visit," he acknowledged about MDS, noting his many trips to Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. People often ask why residents of disaster-prone areas continue to stay, he said, and he has posed the same question to Gulf Coast residents battered not only by hurricanes but also, most recently, by the BP oil spill. Most of the answers are along the lines of "It's home," he said, maintaining, too, that all people who have the means to move "choose which disaster we're willing to put up with." Along the gulf, he added, "what I also hear frequently is, 'Don't forget us.'"
And MDS volunteers in the United States and Canada don't, working to rebuild the homes of people struck by disasters, sometimes with other relief agencies. Along the Gulf Coast, Sundberg said, new homes have been constructed to withstand both hurricane-force winds and-perched atop pilings 12 feet or more above the flood plain-high water.
The poor will always exist, but that's not an excuse for inactivity, and because a disaster will always hit periodically, that's an opportunity to impact people for Jesus, he told his Bluffton listeners, predominantly students. "Go and act in peace."
