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Is God in the crisis in Haiti? Why did God allow it to happen in the first place?

February 9, 2010 by Anthony Tucker,Sierra Leone

It is now couple of weeks after the 7.0mg earthquake hit the poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti. We now talk about post-earthquake crisis in Haiti. The question that most people, both Christians and non-Christians, still continue to ask is why did God allow such a devastating crisis, taking away thousands of lives, to hit a poor country like Haiti? The answer is God never wanted man to suffer. Simply put, for all good things must be attributed to God. Is God in the crisis in Haiti?

A close examination of the wonderful stories coming from there reveals that indeed God is in the crisis in Haiti. After seven days of the earthquake, a woman who is in her seventies was rescued from the rubbles. Remember that even with her weary bones and ageing health survived under unspeakable circumstance of no food and no water for complete seven days. Amazingly, twenty one days after the hit, a 28years old man was rescued caught in the rubble at a rice store in Port-Au-Prince. Those are just two instances among the many wonderful stories streaming from Haiti.

Yes, God is there for the Haitians because the entire world now gives it entire attention to dragging the country from the doldrums of such terrible circumstance to restoring it to the once happy country of Haiti. Even countries with little, like my country Sierra Leone, made donation to the tune $100,000USD in aid assistance to Haiti. Yes, God was and is there for the Haitians through the spirit of the search and rescuers who left their families, friends and countries in responding to the cries of the Haitian. Yes, God is there for the Haiti through the aid effort of institutions like USAID, Doctors without Borders, UNICEF, the Lutheran World Federation, and the Red Cross Society etc. There is hope for the Haitians down the road.

Posted in Life | Leave a Comment »

Reflecting on Lent – and on violence against women

February 2, 2010 by lwfyouth

Lent starts on 17 February 2010. Here is a guest post by our friend Maryann Philbrook reflecting on Lent. She co-developed a bible study series for the season that you find here and that is highly recommended.

I’ve been thinking about Lent 2010 for a long time.  This is not a season that snuck up on me this year.  The main reason is that I’m part of a team that developed “Cries of Anguish, Stories of Hope: A Lenten study on the Worldwide Struggle to end Violence Against Women.”   (You can check out the study http://women.overcomingviolence.org).

When I told some of my friends at Church here about this project, one quipped that “you’ve found a way to make Lent evenmore depressing.”  Lent is depressing, but it’s depressing because our world is depressing.  Lent is the time when we focus on the sins of this world.  Lent is a time to understand our own complicity to these problems.  Lent is a time where we look for Jesus’ love despite these problems.  We look all the problems square in the eye and say “you cannot win.”

During my research and planning for this project I have learned about atrocities all over the world.  Human trafficking is the most profitable black market industry in the world – with estimations going as high as $32 billion a year with over 27 million people currently enslaved.  On average in South Africa a woman is raped every 26 seconds.  In India there are 21 women of the Dalit Caste (“untouchables”) are raped each week.    In the UK, the police estimate that 95% of rapes are never even reported.  In the US, it is estimated that between 2 and 4 million women are assaulted every year by their partners.   I did this research – I found all this information, yet the image that I see when I close my eyes is a girl in a pink shirt playing in the dirt in front of her hut in the Democratic Republic of Congo while you can hear her father saying that she will have to be a prostitute because no man will want to marry someone who is tainted.  She was raped while gathering firewood.   Her attacker, while jailed for a few months, will go free.  I see her face and her tears every time I close my eyes to think about violence against women.  Hers is the story that I cannot forget.

Yet, as much as these stories are appalling what I am struggling with is my own place in the picture. Continue Reading »

Posted in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Church, Ecumenism, Faith, HIV/Aids, Justice, Latin America/Carribean, Middle East, North America, Poverty, Poverty/Affluence, Spirituality | Leave a Comment »

Mobile version of the blog

January 31, 2010 by lwfyouth

If you would like to read the LWF Youth on your mobile phone (that can go to the Internet). Here is the site for this:

http://lwfyouth.mofuse.mobi/

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Young participants for the LWF Assembly in North America

January 31, 2010 by lwfyouth

Posted in LWF, North America, Youth, Youth Ministry, Youth participation | Leave a Comment »

Young people in North America prepare for the LWF assembly

January 30, 2010 by lwfyouth

Here is text of the pressrelease of the youth contribution to the North American Pre-Assembly currently taking place in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada:

Lutheran Youth Appreciate Participation but Yearn for Alternative Ways of Being Church
LWF Urged to Integrate Crucial Contribution of Minority Groups

KITCHENER, Ontario, Canada/GENEVA, 30 January 2010 (LWI) – The realities of how youth participate in church is changing but North American youth still want to be involved. They believe that dialogue and participating in the conversation is just one of the many gifts they bring to the church.

“The paradigms are changing,” said Matt Guess, a youth delegate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), presenting the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) North America youth message to delegates and advisors at the region’s Pre-Assembly Consultation (NAPAC), talking place 29-31 January in Kitchener, Ontario.

Twelve individuals in a variety of roles participated in the youth and women’s meetings, held one day prior to the start of NAPAC. Guess shared highlights from the youth meeting on behalf of the young adult participants and encouraged the region’s delegates to consider the many gifts the young people bring to the table.

“The culture that we [youth] embody today allows us to be able to live out this communion in a new way,” said Guess, who spoke about the intrinsic social justice component inherent in youth today.

Within hours of hearing of the recent tragedy in Haiti, Guess noted that youth were responding with their donations, “via text messages,” to assist with relief efforts in the affected region.

New media enables youth to reach higher levels of connectivity and information. These gifts, which the youth bring to the church, lend themselves to finding new ways of being ecumenical, global, plural and post-modern.

“Our voice is valid and we have many gifts. I hope you will give us a place to grow,” said Guess. “The church of today yearns for new forms of growth, which youth can offer. They come naturally to us.”

As a result, new models of church are appearing. Guess spoke of “Beer and Theology-type events,” which are becoming increasingly popular in emergent church initiatives across North America. Meeting groups that blend pop-culture and faith are attractive and non-threatening to individuals who may not otherwise have had an association to formalized religion.

Expressing appreciation for being included in the LWF and NAPAC activities, Guess referred to the LWF Assembly theme, “Give Us Today our Daily Bread.”

“As I think about daily bread,” he said, “I think about the table and it’s important to have family around the table.”

Guess urged delegates to “not view the youth or any group as a token,” indicating that minority groups should not be a figure or quota to be filled. “Our voice is valid and we have many gifts. I hope you will give us the place to grow.”

Reflecting again on the Assembly’s gathering theme, Guess noted, “youth in the LWF have gifts and knowledge that God has given them to help the LWF determine what today’s daily bread is. Youth are the yeast, they are a necessary ingredient in activating the bread.”

Here are more news and information about the North American Pre-Assembly.

Posted in LWF, North America, Youth, Youth participation | Leave a Comment »

Ideas that drive change – Global Training for young leaders

January 26, 2010 by lwfyouth

Last week, I was working a lot with the plans and reports from young people from around the world. They are the participants of our leadership training program ENGAGE: LWF Global Training for young leaders. We are posting the essence of their plans and – if that is already available – the outcomes of the projects that they have designed as part of the program. There is really fascinating stuff among it: Check it out here. It is worth it. And I thank God every day that I can work with these great people.

Posted in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Church, Europe, Faith, Latin America/Carribean, North America, Youth, Youth Ministry, Youth participation | Leave a Comment »

While we are on the topic of Haiti: A “Natural” Disaster?

January 23, 2010 by Rebekah

             According to Project Poughshares’ Armed Conflict Report, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Approximately five percent of the population controls the majority of the nation’s wealth. Over half the population is unemployed and forty percent of households struggle with issues of food security. Infastructure, including health care, electricity, and running water, is scarce. In addition HIV/AIDS is widespread. However, not much of this is surprising considering that Haiti has been bombarded with IMF economic policies, a US lead economic embargo, and American backed political organizations since 1990.

            Unlike San Francisco, which can afford to retrofit buildings to be earthquake resistant, Haiti, struggling to subsist, cannot. Looking over the last decade we see disaster strike again and again in the impoverished regions of the globe. The 2001 Savadoran earthquake, the tsunami in Sri Lanka, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the list goes on… Thousands die where infrastructure and institutions cannot be afforded to protect individuals from natural phenomena, resulting in a disaster.

          If the disaster is brought to the world’s attention, people tend to come forward in an outbrust of charity and nations come together in support of emergency relief. But as we necessarily reach into our hearts and bank accounts for Haiti, perhaps we must also look at our “natural” disaster track record and ask the question: Is this disaster is the result of a earthquake ranking 7.0 on the richter scale or is it the fate of an impoverished country unable to avoid disaster when natural phenomena hit because of the perpetual cycles of global disparity? If the latter is the case, beyond reactive emergency relief, what are we going to do to prevent the next Sri Lanka? New Orleans? Haiti? from happening to begin with?

Posted in Justice, Poverty, Poverty/Affluence | Leave a Comment »

LWF highly active in Haiti response – and twitters

January 15, 2010 by lwfyouth

The Lutheran World Federation has a long-standing presence with an office in Haiti – and is now at the forefront of the disaster response.

In addition, our web editor Terri Miller writes letter, asking for twitter messages on the earthquake and its aftermath:

Dear Communio friends,

We are planning to use Twitter to share about the LWF communion response to the earthquake in Haiti and we need your input!

The aim is to have you as member churches, related agencies and other partners within the communion send information about Haiti-related actions, news, resources such as prayers or liturgies, updates etc. via Twitter in the form of “tweets.” For those of you who are not familiar with Twitter, tweets are short messages (maximum of 140 characters) sent via mobile texting, instant message or the Web.

We will aggregate these tweets on the LWF Web site so that anyone browsing the site can see what is being done by different members of the communion.

To send tweets, you will need a Twitter account. Go to http://twitter.com/ to register. So that we can feed all LWF-related tweets to the Web site, include the hashtag

#lwf-haiti

at the end of each message.

Thanks and we look forward to hearing about your work!

Posted in Church, Ecumenism, Justice, Latin America/Carribean, Life | Leave a Comment »

On Being an Academic and a Christian In Canada

January 10, 2010 by Rebekah

To begin with, it is necessary to identify myself as a fourth year undergraduate student studying Global Studies and English Literature. My day to day community during the school year is therefore predominantly 18-22 year olds. I am the only one in my group of friends who would consider themselves to be religious, though many claim a Christian heritage, and I am the only person I know in my University community who shares he progressive Christian views of my predominantly-middle-aged-and-older Lutheran community. This doesn’t stop me from having many wonderful friendships, but it does at times restrict the feeling of belonging. Before this year, however, I never felt excluded from the academic discourse I was engaging in; I never felt isolated as a progressive Christian. However, this year I am in a class on Global Perspectives in Religion and Public Policy. A recent lecture given by my professor stated these facts about Christian Privilege that I hold to be true:
• It is likely that state and federal holidays coincide with my religious practices, thereby having little or no impact on my job and/or education.
• It is likely that mass media represents my religion widely and positively.
• I can be sure to hear music on the radio and watch television specials that celebrate the holidays of my religion
• I can be financially successful without the assumption from others that this success is connected to my religion.
• Law enforcement officials will likely assume I am a non-threatening person if my religion is disclosed to them; in fact, disclosure of my religion may actually encourage or incline law enforcement officials to perceive me as being in the right or unbiased.
• The elected and appointed officials of my government are probably members of my religious group.
• When swearing an oath in court or for employment, I am probably making this oath by placing my hand on the scripture of my religion.
• The central figure of my religion is used as the major point of reference for my calendaring system
• When a major political or popular figure dies, it is likely I will see their death memorialized in language and buildings and by religious leaders that belong to my religion.
• When major or popular figures get married, it is likely they will get married in institutions belonging to my religion

However, there remain two points on my professor’s list that do not line up with my life experiences:
• I am not judged by the improper actions of others in my religious group.

On the contrary, though “improper actions” is a subjective term, when I am identified as a Christian I am commonly assumed to be socially conservative, homophobic, anti-abortion, and potentially ‘extra’-ethnocentric. To me many of the actions that stem from these world views are “improper actions”.

• When told about the positive aspects of the history of civilization, I can be sure that I am shown people of my religion made it what it is.

Though this may have been exclusively true thirty years ago, the emphasis today in the university classroom, in my experience, is on modernist and post modernist criticism. Christianity was the imperial colonial force that led to the crusades and the horrors of Canadian colonialism that oppressed (and still oppresses) Canadian Aboriginal populations, the Protestant Reformation made it possible for the rise of capitalism, the oppression of women is biblically based… I am not denying that there is truth in these statements. However, Christianity commonly appears as the ‘bad guy’ in academic discourse. What concerns me is that it is never acknowledged in academic discourse that the theology which led to the historical actions we are condemning is one theology and in many cases an out of date theology. In university today most of the negative aspects of the history of civilization I am shown people of my religion made it what it is.

These two difficulties are in no way equal to the difficulties, restrictions, and stereotypes faced by a person of a religion other than Christianity in Canada. However, the “shadow structure” of Christianity that still permeates Canadian government and policy does not mean that a practicing Christian is free of limitations. At least in academia, these two assumptions of Christian privilege can lead to an ignorance of progressive Christianity, perpetuating the idea that Christianity is incompatible with socially progressive movements. For me this means that asserting my Christian identity means aligning myself with conservative social norms which I consider to be the opposite of Christ’s call. So I ask: How can our actions speak louder than the stereotypes? How can we publically reclaim the good in our history and theology for the healing of the world?

Posted in Faith, Life, North America, Youth | Leave a Comment »

Asian Lutheran youth on daily bread

December 6, 2009 by Roger Schmidt, Switzerland

Today, the Asia Pre-Assembly Consultation of the Lutheran World Federation started in  Bangkok, Thailand. Close to 100 delegates from many Asian countries and churches discuss current issues. The main theme is the same like the LWF assembly in 2010 “Give us today our daily bread”.

Here is the youth response to the keynote address on behalf of the young delegates presented by Kazuhiro SEKINO (Japan Lutheran Church) Continue Reading »

Posted in Asia/Pacific, Church, Ecumenism, Justice, LWF, Life, Youth, Youth Ministry, Youth participation | Leave a Comment »

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