The following was handed to me recently after being found on awebsite, so its accuracy may be debatable but the point is sound.With the troubles of the world we are experiencing today, as wellas troubles some of us may feel here at home, we sometimes forgethow fortunate we are to live where we do.

Take a minute and consider the following:

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village ofprecisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remainingthe same, that community would look something like this:

There would be 57 Asians and 21 Europeans. Fourteen would befrom the Western Hemisphere, both north and south. Eight would beAfricans. Fifty-two would be female and 48 would be male.

Of this community 70 would be non-white and 30 would be white.Seventy would be non-Christian and 30 would be Christians. Six ofthe people would possess 59 percent of the entire world’s wealth,and all six would be from the United States.

Eighty would live in substandard housing with 70 unable to readand 50 suffering from malnutrition. One would be near death and onewould be ready to have a baby.

Only one would have a college education and only one in thishigh tech Internet world we live in would own a computer.

When one considers our world from such a compress perspective,the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomesglaringly apparent.

Some things to ponder as we grumble about things around us thatare not going our way…

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness… youare more blessed than the million who will not survive thisweek.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, theloneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs ofstarvation then you are ahead of 500 million people in theworld.

If you can attend church this morning without fear ofharassment, arrest, torture or death, then you are more blessedthan three billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, aroof overhead and a place to sleep then you are among the top 8percent of the world’s wealthy.

If your parents are still alive and still married, you are veryrare, even in the United States and Canada.

Since you are reading this, you are more blessed that over twobillion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Write to Bill Jacobs at P.O. Box 551, Brookhaven, Miss.39602.