Updated Monday, May 05, 2008

CBF partnership seeks to end poverty

By Patricia Heys

CBF Communications

ATLANTA - The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) is entering into a two-year partnership with a global Christian campaign to end poverty.

As part of its agreement with Micah Challenge USA, CBF will provide $10,000 a year in funding.

"This partnership with Micah Challenge USA makes clear that CBF, its field personnel, and its congregations are determined to do all that we can to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2000," said Rob Nash, the Fellowship's coordinator of Global Missions. "Our intention is to work with Micah Challenge as advocates for the MDGs on behalf of those around the world who live on $1 a day or less."

Nash said CBF will also work to ensure that political leaders in the United States and around the world fulfill commitments they made when the MDGs were first framed.

"I'm grateful for this opportunity to join with other U.S. evangelicals in such a worthy effort," he said.

Micah Challenge USA works with more than 20 organizations to increase awareness of the MDGs. The campaign aims to deepen Christian engagement with impoverished and marginalized communities and to influence world leaders to fulfill their promise to achieve the MDGs. The organization is in 40 countries around the world.

"The CBF's commitment to partner with Micah Challenge USA reminds us that the impoverished are close to God's heart," said Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, Micah Challenge's interim national coordinator. "Micah Challenge was created to respond to a critical moment in history - when the intention of all of the world leaders to halve poverty by 2015 echoes something of the mind of the biblical prophets and the teachings of Jesus concerning the poor. This partnership is an example of the kind of collaboration that can lead to transformed hearts and minds."