“A 14-year drought in the southwestern United States has drained reservoirs such as Nevada’s Lake Mead to record lows. But satellite measurements show that the losses are even greater underground” (Nature, July 25, 2014).

With the Israeli-Hamas crisis waning on, Israeli Foreign Minister Liberman told the German Bild “Germany and the EU must dispatch inspectors to Gaza to monitor trade with the neighboring countries” (Agence France Presse, August 7, 2014). Mr. Liberman noted that the inspectors should not be “police or soldiers” and that “Germany… take a leading role” – all to the agreement of Germany and France (ibid.).

Typhoon Halong “lashed Japan on Saturday as the country headed into a holiday week, causing the authorities to order the evacuation of a half-million people living near swollen rivers and canceling hundreds of flights” (Associated Press, August 9, 2014). By Monday, over 1.6 million people were told to evacuate and at least ten were dead.

As women in God’s Church, when we look around our congregations we see people of different ages, different ethnicities, different socio-economic backgrounds, and different personalities. We can see that God is calling people from all walks of life. Certainly, God loves variety!

One of the most serious crimes of global proportions is human trafficking, which in the 21st century is second only to drug trafficking in terms of magnitude. The term “human trafficking” in a broad sense is often defined as the illegal trade of humans for the purpose of sexual and labor exploitation.