restless, sleepless night

It's a restless, sleepless night for me. I have not had trouble sleeping since the controversy with the new mentoring program at the School District of Lancaster, and all the negative attention it drew in just a couple months ago.
Well, this time I lose sleep over an issue that goes beyond the borders of Lancaster County. An issue that has been around for years and years that needs more than governments and international bodies to eliminate. This issue can't be summed up in just a few words, but is described, rather, by many: poverty, slums, money, rich and poor, injustice, and the list goes on and on. These are the words that run through my head as I read The New Friars by Scott A. Bessenecker. Yes, I lose sleep over these things.

I am groaning out of discontent with myself and with the world. Something must be done. I sleep with the luxury of just knowing I am warm and cozy in my own bed. Within the next hour, I will pull the covers over my head and rest my own weary eyes.
But what about those people? What about the poor? The hungry? The people living in the slums, starving, thirsting for sustainability? For hope? For life?
I'm crying inside thinking about the emergency. Why isn't there more of an urgency? It is not merely an issue of money, finances, and economics that pushes these people and sucks them into poverty. It is the ever-present sin. Poverty begets poverty; bad choices will reap consequences.

These people.

These people are my family. My brothers and sisters. How can I leave them behind? I have not met my sister in Thailand, who sells her body, who is raped by strange men every night to feed her children, but I feel her shame. I have not seen the face of my brother in the squatter settlements of Brazil, or my brother in Smokey Mountain in Manila, Philippines, who drinks in misery, who drowns in alcoholism, and neglects his family, but I sense his loss and confusion.
What do I do? Now I cannot sleep. I am worked up, unsettled. I take frequent pauses as I read my book, thinking about what is going on around the globe. All the injustice. How can one sleep with so much injustice going on?

I must do something. I must live with these people, love them, and hold them in my arms.
God, send me. Send me now. Where do I go? I will go.

Slum village in District 4 of Ho Chi Minh City