why i can't imagine retiring

I'm still a decade and a half from retirement age, but with stuff like this happening, the idea of someday quitting what we're doing is unthinkable. Instead my thoughts go to staying in good health in order to keep going as long as God allows.  Here is the sort of thing that drives my thinking:

Over half the world's population will live in cities by next year, says a report from the UN Population Fund.  In Asia and Africa, urban populations will double, from 1.7 to 3.4 billion individuals.

With such growth, of course the population of urban poor will mushroom, and with it the need for folks to serve them. 

Slum dwellers of the new millennium are no longer a few thousand in a few cities of a rapidly industrializing continent. They include one out of every three city dwellers, a billion people, a sixth of the world’s population.

Over 90 per cent of slum dwellers today are in the developing world. South Asia has the largest share, followed by Eastern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. China and India together have 37 per cent of the world’s slums. In sub-Saharan Africa, urbanization has become virtually synonymous with slum growth; 72 per cent of the region’s urban population lives under slum conditions, compared to 56 per cent in South Asia. The slum population of sub-Saharan Africa almost doubled in 15 years, reaching nearly 200 million in 2005.

Read the report here.

So maybe we'll retire, but into a Bangkok slum.  For some Christian groups that focus on sending people into slums, check out:

Servants to Asia's Urban Poor

Servant Partners  

InnerCHANGE 

Word Made Flesh

Know of others?  Feel free to leave a comment.

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