A letter from Kristi Van Nostran in El Salvador
February 2014
This letter is also available here posted by Joining Hands - a program of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.
World Day of Social Justice
In this age of smart phones, tablets and podcasts, we literally have instantaneous global information at our fingertips, making it hard to dispute that there are powerful forces working contrary to God’s design for the world. These powers take on various forms: political domination, economic oppression, discrimination based on gender or race or creed, and the list goes on.
The forces haven’t changed much since biblical times, yet throughout the Bible we encounter God’s chosen, faithful servants like Moses and Joshua, prophets like Isaiah and Amos, even God’s own Son advocating for justice and reconciliation for the oppressed and the impoverished. Jesus’ life and ministry was characterized by a commitment to what some might call social justice. In fact, his willingness to enter into a relationship with those considered by the spiritual and political authorities of the day to be unclean, uncouth and undesirable sounds an awful lot like the principles of social justice: equality, inclusion and the promotion of human dignity.1 The concept of right societal and economic relationships is woven throughout the entirety of the Scripture; humanity being reconciled to God and to the Creation, and reconciled into community in which not one person need be poor2 in any sense of the word. As Christians we are called to act as agents of God’s mission of justice and transformation that is manifest in the peoples’ struggle for social justice.
The Joining Hands initiative presents a new way for the church to engage the issues of social justice. Women and men of faith in the Global North are invited to work cooperatively in focused campaigns with sisters and brothers in the Global South and East, forming networks of churches, nonprofit organizations and community groups to address systemic causes of hunger and impoverishment in the United States and abroad. Rather than replicate project-based mission, the goal of this transformational justice ministry is to organize in partnership to “campaign for peaceful social change in a globalized world.”3
For our partners with the Red Uniendo Manos El Salvador, RUMES (Joining Hands Network of El Salvador), this means working together for food sovereignty. In the Salvadoran context few farming families own the land they work. When the harvest is good they are able to eat well (more than one substantial meal per day), save seed for next season, and even sell extra produce in the local market. If the harvest is poor, or tropical storms or drought ruin crops as has happened frequently in recent years, it’s not uncommon to have to leverage what is harvested in order to pay what is owed for use of the land and the purchase of seed and other materials. Small farmers are stripped of the control over their own lives and livelihoods, held hostage by the economic violence of the current global food system, and long for liberation from the yoke of conventional agriculture with its costly modified seeds and toxic chemical fertilizers. So churches, labor unions, farmers cooperatives, women’s organizations and youth movements have come together to advocate for food sovereignty and claim their right to the abundant life that God desires for all people.
In John’s Gospel Jesus reminds Peter, three times for emphasis, that to truly love him is to feed [his] sheep.4 To be sure, Jesus uses this metaphor to stress the importance of taking care of those God has entrusted to him, and it’s no coincidence that the most appropriate and powerful image to convey God’s deep care and concern for God’s children is that of keeping them well fed. RUMES believes that we are likewise called to ensure that all people enjoy both the physical sustenance of having enough to eat as well as the fullness of life and livelihood that result from just food systems, achieved through organized and well-articulated actions in solidarity for justice.
According to Stephen Knisely, “The intentional development of relationships with others, while being open to the leading of the Holy Spirit and vulnerable to personal change, is that [which] will transform the world and bring justice.”5 As God’s people we are called to be in relationship with God and neighbor, and it is in and through this communion that transformation takes place and social justice takes root. God calls us to preach, pray and worship embracing the gospel as a message of liberation from every kind of oppression. As we reflect on this World Day of Social Justice, let’s allow God’s mission to inspire and embolden us to work together to meet one another’s spiritual and material needs and to educate and empower one another to transform injustice in every form. In the words of a popular Latin American table prayer, give bread to those who are hungry and give a hunger for justice to those who have bread. Que así sea, may it be so.
Kristi Van Nostran
Companionship Facilitator, Red Uniendo Manos El Salvador
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 41
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1 “World Day of Social Justice,” UN Website, accessed February 12, 2014
2 Deuteronomy 15:4
3 “Joining Hands – who we are and what we do,” Presbyterian Mission Agency, accessed November 24, 2012,
4 John 21:15-17
5 Stephen Knisely, Faith in Action: Understanding Development Ministries from a Christian Perspective (Louisville: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2001), p. 71
