3 - “Le Monde est Grand”

2022 No 3

“He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him.”
--Acts 17:26-27

The canvas upon which the picture of global migration is being painted is immense. In this age of globalization, everything is on the move. Information can traverse the world in seconds. Products can be shipped trans-continentally, often overnight. People can cross most international borders at will and do so with unprecedented frequency. All of this is presented on a fabric that is expanding exponentially. Population growth, urbanization, and a century of historical colonial contexts play intricate roles in people's movements. One can paint an image on glass, and it will shatter if flexibility is required. One can paint a picture on a rubber balloon, and the image will change dramatically with the pressure of the air inside. These conditions make it very difficult to see and then process a comprehensive view of migration in many respects. For example…

Population

The rate at which our world is growing is staggering. In 1800, the population of the world was estimated to be one billion people. It took nearly 125 years for that number to double. It doubled again in just 45 years, reaching four billion in 1974. In 2020, the number was just shy of eight billion people. It is anticipated to grow by another two billion in the next thirty years. Much of that growth will be in the Majority World.¹ In the North, birth rates range between 15-20 per thousand. They are double that in the South. For example, in Africa, two-thirds of the population is under age 25. Compare that to Europe, where only one-fourth are so young.² As one can imagine, the population pressures in one area can readily motivate movement to areas with fewer people and consequently a higher demand for labor.

Urbanization

Urbanization is also a growing global reality. In 1960, when the world’s population was three billion people, two out of every three lived in rural settings. Today, more than half the world lives in urban contexts.³ That is over four billion people! By 2050, the numbers will be reversed, and only a third of the world’s population will live in a rural setting. Such reflects a momentous change in less than a century. In 1950, New York was the world’s largest city with 12.5 million inhabitants. She shared the title of “megacity” with Tokyo only. Today, there are 33 such cities, 27 of which are in the global South. The largest of which exceeds 21 million in population. Although a megacity will be added each year to the list by 2030, only one will be in the North. Between 2018 and 2030, some 250 smaller cities, with populations between five hundred thousand and five million, will also be added.⁴

Migration

In this ever-expanding global context, there are over a billion people on the move today. They are composed of some 780 million domestic movements combined with over 272 million international migrants. They represent more than one out of every eight people in the world. Of that number, 26 million are refugees, and another 41 million have been displaced by violence and conflict.⁵ And in all respects, this data is true... but unfortunately… it is woefully inaccurate! The data has been secured with the best of intentions and a commitment to statistical integrity. Still, it is always subject to the lack of the capacity of local governments to record movements accurately and completely.⁶ Keep in mind that most of the world’s movements occur in countries where the people are poor, in conflict, and authorities focus on a myriad of things other than documenting migration. In other words, the true number of migrants in the world is likely to be grossly underreported.

Beyond the statistics, one must take care to avoid the generalization of motivation for such movements. Seventy-five percent of all international movements may be intentional, suggesting people are making a conscious decision to move in search of a better life.⁷ The numbers are likely higher for internal movements. That means that most migrations are voluntary, legal, and in the end, are successful. International remittances were nearly $690 billion in 2018. That averages to be roughly $3,400 per year per migrant. When one considers that 36% of the world lives in poverty, on less than $1.90 per day, sending back five times that amount amounts to a windfall.⁸ One can get the impression that a migrant to the West may think that money is growing on trees and gold lying along the road. From their perspective, such is not far from the truth.

These three realities (population growth, urbanization, and migration), have created incredible challenges for the local church and her missional efforts. Churches established in the last fifty years are facing substantive changes in their communities. Those in rural contexts are losing their young families as they move to the more prosperous cities. Those in urban contexts are becoming overwhelmed by the masses who are arriving and the social difficulties that they bring. Missional efforts were once focused on rural, homogeneous people groups in regions that were relatively unreached by the gospel and typically without any church expression. Today, churches and organizations must retool as they engage an urban, heterogeneous community in places where the church is thriving.

Our Presumptions Determine Our Pathways

Missional efforts were once focused on rural, homogeneous people groups in regions that were relatively unreached by the gospel and typically without any church expression. Today, churches and organizations must retool as they engage an urban, heterogeneous community in places where the church is thriving.

Our desire is to serve the church as she seeks to engage her community. And yet, getting one’s arms around global migration patterns can quickly become an overwhelming task. The number of people on the move today is equivalent to the world's total population in 1800! Correspondingly, the geopolitical and cultural complexity of the world has not diminished. In many ways, it has only become more confusing. And while the goal of this work is to have a high view of migration, it is evident that getting too far away renders the task unmanageable. As they say in Africa, “Le monde est grand!”. There is certainly no disagreement with that expression.

In the academic world, it is required of doctoral students to narrow the focus of their thesis to a tiny point. They must distill their research question to its very essential components and eliminate any extraneous material. In so doing, the students reach a point where they can address the actual problem at hand. It is a critical exercise that finely tunes their research skills. The criticism can be, in the end, that their question was so specific that it fails to be relevant to more significant, real-life issues. I could not disagree more. Having gone through such an exercise twice, I can say that both experiences had great value. Why? Because the territory one must master to get to that small point was huge. One may have simultaneously exhausted and expanded the global base of knowledge on the minute point, but they must also have had a comprehensive grasp on the larger territory in order to place the question / problem in its proper context.

Even though the field of diaspora ministry and research is enormous, we can learn much by identifying a smaller context in which to work. For us, that is currently the continent of Africa. That narrows our studies to only 1.2 billion people and a migrant population of around 233 million people!⁹ Thus, to constrict the field even further, we will focus our current attention on those sub-Saharan migrants seeking to move from Africa to Europe. By spending time with this particular group of migrants, and the churches serving their needs, we anticipate that we will be able to identify principles and trends that can be applied to global migration issues. That way, others can benefit from our work as we seek to discern the best ways to share the gospel with those groping to find Christ.

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¹ The term “Majority World” refers to countries where most of the world’s population resides. On the other hand, the “Minority World” are the nations more commonly considered “developed” where a smaller percentage of the earth’s population lives. See Philip Jenkins, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), ix. See also, Lemuel Ekedegwa Odeh, "A Comparative Analysis of Global North and Global South Economies " Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa Volume 12, No.3, 2010 (2010).

² United Nations, "Population", United Nations https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population (accessed July 24, 2021).

³ UNDESA, World Urbanization Prospects 2018: Highlights (Geneva, 2018).

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Marie McAuliff and Binod Khadria, World Migration Report 2020 (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2019).

⁶ Ibid., 29.

⁷ Ibid., 33.

⁸ See Provcalnet: An Online Analysis Tool for Global Poverty Monitoring, ed. World Bank, in the World Bank, http://iresearch.worldbank.org/PovcalNet/home.aspx (accessed October 23, 2021). See also Nirav Patel, "Figure of the Week: Understanding Poverty in Africa", Brookings Institute https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2018/11/21/figure-of-the-week-understanding-poverty-in-africa/ (accessed November 17, 2021).

⁹ Nations.