Faith & International Development Conference Kicks Off

February 10, 2006 == MEDIA ADVISORY

"You have come from all over the nation because you care about what's going on all over the globe."

With those words Calvin College vice president for student life Shirley Hoogstra kicked off the first Faith and International Development Conference at Calvin.

She continued: "You had a lot of options about how to spend your Thursday, Friday and Saturday. You have made the right choice* . Welcome to Calvin College."

Conference organizer Jackie Biltz, who created the Faith and International Development with 2004 Calvin graduate David Beversluis and students from the Health and International Development club, said she was overwhelmed that the attendance goals for the event were not only met, but surpassed.

The conference began at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 9 with an address by David Beckman, president of bread for the World. Beckman assured the 350-plus people in the Gezon Auditorium at Calvin: "I'll talk about Bono, but more about the Bible."

International development is not a technical matter, Beckman said but a living experience of God in our time.

He lauded the pledge to halve global poverty and hunger by 2015 - one of eight U.N. Millennium Development Goals -describing that effort as a miraculous work of God.

"We should see this as Exodus happening in our midst," he said.

Beckman noted that the Bible is shot through with injunctions - from Moses and the prophets and from Jesus - to care for the destitute, and that those injunctions are being heard around the globe.

"There is a surge of concern and activism about global poverty," he said.

He commended the high-profile leadership of Bono on issues of international development, calling the U2 front man "a very unlikely prophet" for our time.

"I don't know of another prophet who wears sunglasses," Beckman joked.

Bono, he said, has been especially effective in mobilizing leaders like Bill Gates and celebrities like Brad Pitt to the battle against poverty and hunger.

"I didn't even know who Brad Pitt was," Beckman confessed. "I put it on my list of things to do - find out who Brad Pitt is -when he signed up for the One Campaign."

But Beckman confessed himself more heartened by the non-luminaries, particularly the recent rally of evangelicals and persons aged 20-ish, to the anti-poverty, anti-hunger cause.

"What really encourages me is not Brad Pitt or Bono," he said. "Brad Pitt could be on to something else in a couple of years . . . What really encourages me is people like you."

For the complete story see http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2005_06/beckman.htm

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Received on Fri Feb 10 14:36:15 2006