Mark Michaelis’ Ironman Challenge
Mark Michaelis' 
Challenge
I am participating in the 2008 Couer d’Alene Ironman Competition on June 22 in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. In this event I will attempt to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run a marathon (26.2 miles). Using this event, I want to increase awareness for the issue of global hunger and poverty and, through Janus Charity Challenge, I am raising money for World Relief.
If we look back on history, we are repeatedly horrified by atrocities like the Holocaust and flabbergasted by the fact that so many who could have done something, instead stood by on the sidelines and watched. As the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, I believe that future generations will look back on this one with the same horrified view. In a time where globalization has flattened the world, why is it that in the last 24 hours approximately 30,000 children die due to hunger and easily preventable diseases – extreme poverty. Deaths like this are from simple problems like dirty drinking water or the unavailability of a 20 cent pill that is common place in the U.S. What is remarkable is there are ample resources to solve world poverty – this planet does not have a supply problem, there is no shortage of land or water. To put it coldly, this world has a distribution problem. Fundamentally, however, this is a justice problem. The wealthy few control the rules of the game and the poor are powerless to change that equation and the disparity between the rich and poor is increasing, not decreasing.
In Haiti, you can be horrified by the glaring disparity between the rich on the top of the hill and the slums down below. It causes one to ask, how can the rich be so cold, selfish, and calloused. However, this confronts us with our own hypocrisy: just because we can’t see the poverty, doesn’t make our comfortable life any less unjust. Even if we harden our hearts and ignore how most of the world lives – they still live that way. The fact is, three million people still live on $2 a day and about half of those (1.2 billion) live on less than $1 a day. What does a parent do on $1 a day when it is time to buy a sweater for one of their two children, take their child to the hospital on the bus, or buy food for the family?
If I saw a documentary on my lifestyle in comparison to those in most of the third world, I would be horribly embarrassed. Just because no one has done that documentary, doesn’t make the injustice any less ghastly (just less embarrassing). As a Christian, God says he desires to see me, “...break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts, ...sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.” 1 It is out of this calling that I have spent time in poverty situations.
In college, I spent a summer living in the inner-city of Chicago teaching disadvantaged children. Another year I spent the summer in the inner-city of Johannesburg, South Africa trying to love those living on the street. I have slept on the streets with the poor in order to have just an inkling of what life is like there. Eleven years ago Elisabeth and I quit our jobs and moved to Mozambique were we worked at a children’s center for orphans and children from the street. I remember going to the hospital in Maputo, Mozambique where I was simply horrified by the conditions in cholera ward. They had an entire hospital building dedicated to a disease for which people were dying in epidemic proportions every day – due simply to the lack of clean water. (More than 1.5m children under five die each year because they lack access to safe water and proper sanitation.) Again, the disparity is glaring. With my comparative wealth, I was able to be vaccinated every six months from cholera while people living in Mozambique were dying in cholera beds (see Figure 1).
I have been confronted firsthand with the reality that the rest of the world doesn’t have a 2+ bedroom house with a garage or even regular meals (never mind dinner eating out). For me, when it comes to buying anything, I always have to ask what better cause could the money go to? Far too often I still end up buying the selfishly and the result is buyers regret – the kind where you wonder if giving the money away wouldn’t have been a wiser spend?
Elisabeth and I have donated regularly to World Relief for almost 10 years. We love their commitment to changing the world one person at a time in the areas where the needs are the most critical. The integrity with which they approach this and their mission to address humanitarian needs holistically is tremendous. They approach this not just by providing disaster relief such as giving food and refugee care, but also by teaching people to become self sufficient through maternal and child health care, a child development program, agricultural support, microfinance, AIDS care and more. It is towards their work that I hope is to raise $30,000 (a dollar for every child that dies each day) and Elisabeth and I will match it dollar for dollar. We will match more if we can raise it.
Donations can be made thru the Janus Charity Challenge. Please join me in making the world a better for those whose poverty is unimaginable for most of us. Consider donating something per mile of the Ironman (140 miles?).
Monday, June 02, 2008 2:31:00 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 
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