Did You Know...

...did you know that if you are not buying fairly traded chocolate, or some sort of chocolate where you know it's origin, then it is likely that the cocoa in your chocolate has been harvested by children of have been humanly trafficked onto cocoa farms in the ivory coast of africa...

let me explain a little bit more...

about 43% of the world's cocoa for producing chocolate is grown in the ivory coast of africa, and there have been some 12,000 or more children trafficked into that region to work on these farms. and unless your chocolate is fairly traded (which guarantees that trafficking is not involved) then it is likely that you are contributing...

there is an organization (you can get more info about all of this on their website - www.stopthetraffik.org) called stop the traffik, that believes that God has a huge heart for injustice and believes that we as followers of Christ have a role to stand up and to say, "stop, in the name of Jesus, stop"...

so how do we do that...well, they bet method that they have found in this case is to try to enducate people about what is going on and then to ask people to only buy fairly traded chocolate (or chocolate where you know it's exact origin)...so that the producers of the chocolate feel the pinch, and in turn they will need to turn to the growers in the ivory coast and ask for fairly traded cocoa, which would bring nothing short of total revolution to what is going on in the ivory coast...

and i know, it seems like an issue that is way too big for one person to make a difference in, but seriously, with that attitude, how are we ever going to change the world for Christ. true change in the name of Christ is only going to happen with one individual at a time...it is only going to happen from the bottom up...and it is time that we as Christ followers stop sitting around and just expecting everyone else to do something...