On December 1st, a freezing winter day, as protestors in Seattle challenged business as usual at the World Trade Organization, a few dozen people gathered on the east steps of the U.S. Capitol to challenge business as usual in Congress, to speak truth about the burden of debt to that power, and to call for jubilee. Earlier that day (beginning at 6:30 am), many of them -- Franciscans in brown robes -- had been at a suburban metro station to hand out leaflets about Jubilee 2000 and the moral imperative of debt cancellation. All of them were participants in the Rolling Fast, a project of Jubilee 2000 and the Religious Working Group on the World Bank and IMF.

  A week earlier, a hundred people gathered at St. Elizabeth‚s College in New Jersey to hear testimony about the impact of debt in Honduras, Haiti and Kenya; to reflect on the biblical mandate for jubilee; to learn about the Jubilee 2000 campaign; and to determine some actions for debt cancellation that they would be willing to undertake. Most of them were fasting that day.

  Similar events have been held in New York, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Texas, Indiana, California, Pennsylvania and dozens of other locations. During the last hundred days of the millennium, well over 35,000 people across the United States -- some in every state -- and from many other countries as well, participated in a Rolling Fast.

  They did this to remind themselves of the hunger for food and for economic justice of millions of people living in countries over-whelmed with external debt. They fasted in acknowledgment of the tremendous debt owed from North to South ˆ debt that can never be adequately repaid, debt for which restitution must be made: debt for the slave labor upon which the economies of the North were built; debt for the sweatshop labor upon which corporate power in the North continues to depend; debt for the minerals and other natural resources that were outright or virtually stolen to enrich colonial powers; debt for the drastically undervalued basic commodities that provide "affordable" consumer goods for the wealthy in the North; debt for the environmental destruction in the South caused by wasteful lifestyles in the overdeveloped North.

  Many fasted because they believe that some evils can only be overcome by prayer and fasting. They have witnessed, many of them firsthand, the human and environmental cost of the debt. Some have worked for over a decade to bring this critical issue to the attention of the world. They have seen the intransigence of creditors and know well that debt cancellation is a point of entrée into much larger issues of global economic justice. They know that the kind of changes suggested by Jubilee 2000 could help crack the stranglehold of wealthy creditor nations and institutions on impoverished countries and that resistance will come from extremely powerful sectors of global society.

  They fasted because they believe that by this action their own commitment to work for global economic justice will be strengthened. They know that the struggle for debt cancellation, while it may benefit from the impetus toward jubilee at this millennium moment, will be long and hard, that movement toward economic justice will derive from concrete actions not promises, and that many of the steps yet to be taken are the most difficult of all.

  As part of this 100-day-long chain of prayer and fasting, each person or community stopped eating for at least one day (most took only juice). Some fasted one day a week. Others did a solidarity fast, eating for the entire 100 days a very simple diet of foods that might be available to people living in poverty under the burden of debt. Participants were from every walk of life, of every age, and of different religious traditions.

  Some fasted in private as an act of repentance and preparation for renewed effort in the new millennium to cancel the debt and promote economic justice. Others made their fast day an occasion for public witness, education or action. Many workshops on debt and the jubilee, days of retreat for reflection on jubilee, and public prayer services were held in conjunction with the fast. Often the day of fasting was an occasion for a vigil - a reason to hand out literature on Jubilee 2000 and debt in public places, an "excuse" to contact the media. Many visited local Congressional offices on their fast day, or wrote letters to their representatives and senators.

  The Rolling Fast was initiated by the Religious Working Group on the World Bank and IMF and Jubilee 2000/USA on September 21, when visitors from impoverished countries, including Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Kenya, Guyana, Ghana, Uganda, India and Peru came to Washington to participate in a public inter-religious service outside the World Bank and IMF and make visits to Congressional offices.

  As the millennium turns, those who have marked these weeks with this particular form of prayer will break their fast, light a candle of hope that change is possible - and send yet another jubilee message to their members of Congress. The Fast will end on December 31, 1999, but those who participated hope that its power will energize our work to cancel the debt and bring a measure of justice into the global economy.