China's feeling the global recession (CNN) at least as much as anyone, and those who feel the pinch the most are always the poor, they have the least margin.

Twenty million Chinese migrant workers have lost their jobs in the past few weeks as global demand for products has taken a dive.

Looking at just one province: Chinese authorities say that 60 percent of Sichuan's 87 million residents are poor and live in the countryside. Millions of migrant workers who have lost jobs are returning to these rural homes and families, where the only alternative for many appears to be subsistence agriculture.

These very homes and families previously depended on funds from one or more family workers who migrated to the city for factory jobs - jobs that are disappearing fast as 70,000 factories so far have closed in recent months.

This is bad news. Like most, I would like some way to respond to this news. The most immediate response I can think of is to pray diligently for the church in China to rise to this occasion. When stability (even if it is a fragile stability) is pulled out from under us, the human response is to turn to God for help and hope.

God can and does use hard times for good, to remind us WHO we are and WHOSE we are, and to help us live lives of worship whatever the context. I pray this will be especially true in China during these challenging days.

As a consumer, one with an awareness of how many incidental things we purchase and use which are "made in China," behind these physical objects these are individual families and jobs and livelihoods.

We also need to pray for China's leaders. These economic challenges may also accelerate political changes.

If evil is the opposite of good, there is a durable evil in Myanmar, where a totalitarian government does not appear to serve its people, a horrible Hurricane Nargis took the lives of 140,000 less than a year ago (made worse by the paranoid malpractice of the isolationist government) and most prospects for the future are bleak.

Here's NPR's Myanmar story from a below-the-radar personal visit by journalist Michael Sullivan.

What if we were to pray for Myanmar over the long haul? What if we were to pray for change, to insist that God bring change and hope to the people of this suffering nation? If we were to pray such a thing, it would need to allow for the fact that God has always gone before our prayers and is already advocating for people in need, made in God's image but suffering. God's already working before we arrive, before we care. The biggest sacrifice has been already spent, and even God's Spirit groans deeply in prayer wherever there is need for transformation and restoration.

But such prayers also need to acknowledge if they're honest that the all powerful God has not prevented calamity which could have been prevented, and loss which has been suffered. God has some purposes beyond the eradication of selfish behavior and its consequences; beyond the seemingly random selection of natural disasters and extreme weather, or even the whims of tyrants.

I don't understand it, but I do believe God's purposes are threaded through all of this. And even so, I pray against the suffering of people who I believe God deeply loves, every one. I pray for light, for the church of Myanmar to not only survive but to thrive with good news and abundant life and fruit.

How Long, Lord? When will your righteousness come?

A 19-year-old woman rocks a 3-month-old baby in the temporary shelter... blue plastic sheeting wrapped around four poles, topped with a crude thatch roof...

When asked how much it would cost to build a new house, she responds, about $500. And how long will it take to come up with that amount? About 10 years, maybe more, she says.

Even the global accolades and financial success of the hit film don't so easily translate into actual transformation out of a life of poverty for kids that were selected and paid to star in the film.

This AP article, "`Slumdog Millionaire' kid stars face uphill battle" is worth a read, it hints at many realities that make poverty a difficult nut to crack.

Not that anyone expected hollywood or bollywood to offer sustainable solutions to poverty. A few good intentions aside, the entertainment industry exists to make profits, not to help people or tackle global problems.

 Ten-year-old Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail lives in a lean-to made of tarpaulins and blankets. Nine-year-old Rubina Ali's home is a tiny bubble-gum pink shack. A murky open sewer runs down her narrow lane...

Here's a powerful audio visual summary of several years of turmoil in Congo's recent history of struggling for peace.

(Warning, I wouldn't watch this with kids, until you've seen it and can decide for yourself whether it's appropriate.)

Seeing and hearing about such difficult, prolonged struggles, one of my responses is honest prayer to God.

Why, God, are we who are made in your image also capable of the evil things we do to one another? How can we become so blind and so desperate that we do unthinkable acts? Why do we so often abuse power when we have it? Why are we so selfish? Why are we indifferent? Why do we intervene in areas we should not, and refrain from intervention that would seem to be just and righteous?

As of last year, more people live in cities than rural places.

A billion of the world's people live in slums. The UN expects this number to double in 25 years.

The Places We Live presents 16 stories from four of today's huge city slums.

These stories are worth taking in, it only takes about a half hour of your time. There are voices of despair and resignation but also hope and resilience.

The panoramic VR images are powerful glimpses of the tiny living spaces in these slums. The narrator voices (though not always natural translations read in English) tell stories that are informative and real.

I find that without regular exposure to real stories of people who live in poverty, I am more likely to become numb to the reality of poverty in our world. I'd prefer to regularly be confronted, by choice, with the realities of the human struggle, because many of the choices I make and the economics of my own north American society have threads of influence interwoven with those who live in poverty half a world away.

My suggestion is to not just take this in and then move on with life as usual; but rather, after taking this in, choose one action you will take to respond to extreme poverty. It doesn't have to be a big action. Choose something small and achievable. Write it here in the comments, to help others.

"If we tell people about our house, will anyone believe us?" - Nagamma Shilpiri, Mumbai