I have the privilege to lead Episcopal Relief and Development at this place and time as we work together to do to unto the least of these what we would do for Jesus.

On December 26th 2004 I was very contentedly reflecting on a happy career in the field of Asian studies.  I had reached many important milestones and was extremely satisfied with where I found myself.

That morning I listened to the first radio accounts of a mysterious tsunami that had swept across the Indian Ocean.

As the days and news accounts unfolded, the dimensions of the unspeakable tragedy became clear, yet to me unfathomable.  I found myself shaken as the death toll rose.  Twenty-thousand; thirty-thousand; fifty-thousand; seventy-five thousand!

Until that point, I had devoted my entire professional life to Asian studies, but there was not a single thing that I could do or say that would make any difference as the most unbelievable tragedy took the lives of countless thousands.

The following Sunday, ERD had placed in my pew a bulletin insert explaining how it was responding to the tsunami.  For the very first time, my wife and I decided to support the work of ERD like so many others had done.

ERD helped me to move from paralyzed despair to hopeful action.

I soon discovered that ERD was looking for a new president and the rest, as they say, is history…

The tsunami of 2004 was terrible, but there are countless silent tsunamis happening everyday around the world.

During the time we are together there are:
• 815 million people who are chronically undernourished
• Three billion people who live on less than $2 per day
• 30,000 children who die each day from hunger-related causes
• children dying every eight seconds from drinking dirty water
• 10 million children who die each year from treatable diseases
• Eight newborns that die every 60 seconds from low birth weight, malnutrition or infection.
• 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS

Why aren’t the television crews covering these deaths?
Why have we closed our hearts to these souls? 
Where are the humanitarian armies to prevent these tsunamis?

They are sitting right in front of me.  You are these armies.  Your vision three years ago created Episcopal Relief and Development as the international development arm of our Church.

What you did was visionary and Episcopalians from around the country have responded with staggering generosity.  Let me tell you how far we’ve all come since the last General Convention.

In 2004, there were 2563 Churches that supported ERD.  At the end of 2005 there were 4967! That’s a 100% increase.

In 2004, there were 23,054 individuals who made donations to ERD.  At the end of 2006 there were 86,370!  That’s a 300% increase.

In 2004, ERD received donations totaling $9,897,584.  At the end of 2005, total donations were over $36,876,600!  That’s a 400% increase.

Thanks to this outpouring of compassion and generosity, we have been able to expand our programs in the areas of disaster response, food security, primary healthcare and HIV/AIDS to the point where we serve over 1.2 million people.

But we certainly can’t rest on our laurels.  All these facts cannot obscure the fundamental reality of our times: God’s call to us to feed the hungry and care for the sick remains as urgent today as it ever was.

Shortly after I became president of ERD, I had the privilege of visiting one of ERD’s programs in El Salvador.

Maria and her family of five live in a house with a dirt floor.  The family sleeps in hammocks to stay out of the rain water that flood their home.  The hammocks have the added advantage of keeping the family out of the way of snakes when they are sleeping.  The walls of the house are made of scavenged tin and sometimes wood pieces.  There is no running water but there is a well.
 
The family cooks over an open fire under a lean-to roof to keep the fire from going out in the rain.  The cooking area is smoky and dangerous—children are easily burned. Women and children continuously breathe in the smoke from the fire and as a result, they develop upper respiratory problems.  These problems start at an early age and become chronic and life-threatening, leading to death eventually.

We are working with the community to build smoke-less stoves—enclosed cement stoves with chimneys.
 
I asked Maria what difference the stove had made to her and her family.  She said that it had changed their life.  Her children didn’t burn themselves when they played in the cooking area and her eyes and lungs were clear.  There had been no infections since the stove was built: She had stayed healthy and so had her family.  Who would have thought that a simple modification on a stove could have changed so many lives for the better?

How are we going to stop the silent tsunamis sweeping away the most vulnerable among us?

One family at a time, one stove at a time, one prayer at a time because that is what God calls us to do in Matthew 25.

Over the next three years, ERD plans to substantially expand its malaria prevention
program. 

We hope to reach over three million people in 16 countries.

Last month, we launched the first phase of this project in Zambia and there was a gala celebration in which the donors, the ministry of health and other dignitaries participated. 

After all the speeches had been made and the people in their fancy clothes went home, ERD’s partners in Zambia got on their bicycles and motorcycles and rode out into the country side. They would begin the distribution of tens of thousands of long-lasting insecticide treated nets.

On one of the places where our partners arrived, they saw hundreds of villagers who had been waiting in the heat all day long.  Babies were strapped onto the backs of the women who had walked many miles for a chance to help their children live a better life. 

For the people our partners serve, we are the only source of malaria prevention—you and I.

Episcopal Relief and Development go literally to the end of the road to deliver nets to families with small children so that those children might be spared the fate of the 12 million others who will die before their fifth birthday.

How are we going to stop the silent tsunamis sweeping away the most vulnerable among us?

One net at a time, one family at a time, one baby at a time because that is what God calls us to do
in Matthew 25.

Friends, you have done a wondrous thing in creating Episcopal Relief and Development and supporting it so generously.

I know there are many difficult discussions and decisions that we are struggling with in our Church.  I certainly don’t know the answers to all these issues. 

Of one thing I am certain, however.  In the time it has taken me to deliver this speech, another silent tsunami has rippled across the world, taking in its wake over eight hundred children whose deaths could have been prevented.  How many will die of preventable causes during the 10 days of this convention?

If these children had died in a plane crash it would be news for weeks.  Yet their deaths have gone largely unnoted.

Please hold these children in your prayers.

Ladies (and Gentlemen), brothers (and sisters) in Christ, let us work together to live out Matthew 25: “to do unto the least of these what we would do for Jesus”.

To paraphrase St. Teresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now, but ours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but ours.
Ours are the eyes with which he sees.
Ours are the feet with which he walks.
Ours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.