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Mennonite Central Committee Preface

By Arli Klassen

"Love your neighbor as yourself": Christ's command, rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures, is no easy task. Many of us ask ourselves, "Who are my neighbors, and what does loving them look like?" Love for our neighbors, in a globalized world marked by poverty and climate change, might look a lot like living more with less.

Living more with less has been part of my theology since I was given the More-with-Less Cookbook at my wedding thirty years ago. Later that same year, my husband and I purchased our own copy of Living More with Less. Both books have had a tremendous influence on me, just as they have had on many people in my generation. These days our young adult daughters are challenging me to live in ways that care for the whole of creation. I need new ideas and inspiration to create new lifestyle habits, new ways of loving my neighbors around the world. This anniversary edition of Living More with Less will do exactly that.

Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is part of this project because we have always believed that the changes we seek to support around the world must include ourselves. MCC is a worldwide ministry of Anabaptist churches, sharing God's love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice. MCC works in relief, development, and peace in sixty countries around the world. We envision communities worldwide in right relationship with God, with each other, and with creation. MCC is not just a ministry of the church but a grassroots movement, drawing inspiration and encouragement from the thousands who participate in loving their neighbors in some practical way through MCC. The concrete lifestyle ideas in this book resonate with MCC's vision and purpose.

Much has changed in our world during the thirty years since Living More with Less was first published, yet much has also stayed the same.

• Today 1.1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world's population, are chronically hungry. Thirty years ago, 19 percent of the total population was undernourished, which was 853 million people. Thus, the relative number of hungry people has gone down in thirty years, even as the total number has gone up.
• Today about 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water supplies, about 15 percent of the total population. Thirty years ago, the same number, 1.1 billion people, lacked access to clean water, but that was 25 percent of the total population.
• In 2005 about 1.4 billion people (25 percent of the world's population) lived in deep poverty, on less than $1.25 (U.S.) per day. This is compared to 1.9 billion people (50 percent) in 1981.

We have made some progress on hunger, water, and poverty issues, but these remain huge problems of inequity in our world today. This book is a new version, with fresh ideas, and it will encourage each one of us to try some new things. I pray that it will inspire all of us to live in right relationship with God, with our neighbors near and far, and with creation.

Arli Klassen is Executive Director of Mennonite Central Committee.