Here is a story written by RAMAMBATIANA Nasolo Henintsoa. He is a friend from the Lutheran Youth Organization in Madagascar and is a first year student of medicine:
“I would like to share especially my experience at the prison of Madagascar about HIV/AIDS. Indeed my mother works for a project at 11 prisons in Madagascar. The main goal Continue reading
Posted in Life
A post by Mathias Möller, Brazil:
“In my last post I wrote about the event promoted by the Department of Public Information in order to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the compendium of advances made since then.
One noticeable issue was the gap between rhetoric and daily reality. Therefore I would like to exchange with you some lessons learned during the week I were attending to the Human Rights Council (HCR) at the United Nations. For those who shall not know, this Council is a very important part of the UN Human Rights machinery. Here main issues are addressed to the Council and their solutions harmonized between the governments and where even the Civil Society has an important role to take.
For the challenges remaining Continue reading
Posted in Church, Justice, LWF, Youth, Youth participation
To many people the mention of the word Kenya sends memories of the bloody post election violence witnessed early this year where over a thousand people lost their lives, property worth millions destroyed and worse of all, scores of people were left homeless and internally displaced.
Springs of Life Lutheran Church-Kibera was a hard hit victim of the violence as it lost its sanctuary, pastor’s office, nursery school and a newly constructed clinic to ruthless arsonists who stole and set ablaze whatever they couldn’t steal ablaze.
It was a sudden and sad reality for the kibera church which was a victim of circumstance due to the fact that it is located right in the middle of the second largest slum in Africa,Kibera, and which was one of the areas hardest hit by the post election violence.
Rather than retaliate to the general perpetrators of the violence or withdraw from responsibility, Springs of Life Lutheran Church has keenly embraced the command of Jesus Christ of loving our enemies and doing good unto them that wrong us. The church has successfully organised community dialogues for peace and a string of sporting competitions right at the church compound with the goal of reconciling the warring functions and also as a way of bringing the youths who were the main victims of the violence to the church for positive and virtue inculcating sporting events. This have proved successful and the place which would otherwise have been avoided for fear of suspicion of those involved is now a busy hub where youths from all ethnic backgrounds from all over kibera meet daily for volley ball, football and basket ball.
Springs of Life Lutheran church believes that harmonious and peaceful co-existence is a collective responsibility not only for state leaders and politicians but also for the church to take a centre stage in. The church should be a go between the state and the community who are both its members and neighbours as well.
The youths in the church have a grand responsibility of reaching out in love to their fellow youths in the community as they speak the same language, understand each other better, and above all, this is a sure way of fulfilling the Great Commission of making all disciples of Jesus.
Author:
Josephat Suweh- LUCCEA Youth Acting Secretary.
Posted in Life
Here is a contribution by Pavlína Buzková from the Czech Republic:
“People who fought for the abolition of slavery before the 1830s were looked at as unrealistic, naive and dreamers”
said Fatou Bensouda, one of the speakers at the 61st DPI/NGO annual conference when a possible reform of the UN Security Council was discussed. “Reaffirming Human Rights for All. The Universal Declaration at 60″ was the title of the conference which brought together over 2000 NGO representatives. It was held in Paris from 3rd to 5th September 2008.
The Lutheran World Federation, Continue reading
Posted in Justice, LWF, Youth participation
Is it possible to recreate great impulses? The World Missionary Conference in 1910, the first of its kind, had a major influence on church history in the 20th century. Many see it as an important milestone in the ecumenical movement, it certainly had greatly facilitated the coordination of the work of mission organizations. It made strong impact with the idea that the churches have to stand to together in order to witness Christ to the world.
2010 marks the 100th anniversary of that event. It is already clear that there will be another conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, to celebrate the first conference. However, it should be more than just a polite and somewhat boring history event. It should give again a strong impulse to global Christianity to witness Christ together in ways that are appropriate for today. The group that has come together to do that is already quite impressive. All the participating organizations have sent their representative to the “General Council” of that process. It started meeting yesterday in Edinburgh and I am there on behalf of the LWF.
The process has two major aspects:
It is great to know that is already clear that 25% of the participants are supposed to be youth at the conference but a lot of details are not yet so clear. That is what we are working on in St. Colms a very nice old building that used to host the College for Women Missionaries.
Posted in Church, Ecumenism, Evangelism, Spirituality, Youth participation
Concerning to my previous blog, one of the most pathetic and tragic issue in India is the communal violence. Now this violence has flared up in my state Orissa, engulfing around 16 districts mainly to the tribal dominated districts. This is not originally a mere communal violence but if we do a proper analysis the real cause is poverty, deprivation and bad governance in the state.
On 23rd August 2008, a VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) Leader Swami Lakshamananda Saraswati was shot dead by some Maoists. Which triggered a wave of violence across the state, claimed its first casualty during the 12 hours Orissa Bandh when a woman inmate of a missionary orphanage was burnt alive in Bargarh district. Report said more 5 persons were also burnt alive in Kandhamal district. Several parts of the state were already on the boil, violence escalated in parts of Kandhamal as the religious fundamentalists ( VHP, RSS-Rastriya Swayam Sangh, Bajrang Dal ) targeted the minorities ( Christian Community ).
Wrath fundamentalists attacked many churches, prayer houses, missionary institutions, orphanages and set them into fire. Continue reading
Posted in Asia/Pacific, Faith, Justice, Life
Today, I received an email from Sean Marston. He is a Baptist pastor serving in New Zealand. On behalf of an evangelical mission agency he started a website to track global trends of youth culture.
That is certainly an interesting endeavor and so I surfed a bit on the page www.youthmesh.org.
Sean wants to be make resources available to understand how young people understand the world and their lives and how they express it using music and the arts. That all should help churches announce the gospel in more relevant ways to young people.
That is obviously a good idea. There are already many, many webpages devoted to that in many countries. But they usually look at their own countries. Sean believes that global youth culture in the age of the Internet and of the global reach of MTV becomes increasingly similar. Therefore, he provides a global outlook.
I didn’t have the time to look more deeply at the website and there are several reasons that make me reluctant to do so. These are my critical observations Continue reading
Posted in Faith, Life, Youth, Youth Ministry
There is nothing harder to comprehend than violence of people against people. But yet, it happens every day and right now at a large scale in the state of Orissa in India. I visited the state and the Lutheran Church there just a few months ago and many of our friends work there.
The situation is tense:
(A list of the incidents is compiled by the Evangelical Fellowship of India.)
The violence broke out after the leader Continue reading
Posted in Asia/Pacific, Church, Faith, Justice
Do you know why some people are so intolerant? I’ll tell you why. They have no idea what are they talking about. They are afraid of things that they don’t know. What’s more, they hate them. It’s kind of protection. People feel fear so they attect “this thing”. I know that that it’s nothing new that I’m writing about, but last time I realize again that even small knowledge helps to understand different people, different cultures, religions and nations.
What I want to say finally is that education, work with kids and teeneagrs are very important. Workshops, films, discussions, etc, can make a great thing. When I was a kid I was attending in meetings with children from others churches and religions. Last half an year I was organizer of that kind of meetings. It’s such a great fun for me when I can see that kids want to learn by playing and that they remember so many things about others, and mostly they see more similar things So if some of you have some possibilities to tell young people about others, don’t waste time-JUST DO IT! It’s very challenging but it gives satisfaction and happy.
Posted in Life
Right now, the United Nations Human Rights Council is holding its meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. LWF Youth has invited Mathias Möller from Brazil to attend the meeting together with our colleagues from the LWF Office for International Affairs and Human Rights. Last week, Mathias was already at the Conference for Non-Governmental Organizations of the United Nations Department for Public Information in Paris.
Here are some of his reflections:
“Did you know that we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this year?
In December 1949, in the spirit of reconstruction and reordering the worlds international regime, representatives of the United Nations member states (with a substantial contribution of civil organizations) signed the Declaration which would bound for the years to come international society to the established basic needs for human dignity. Continue reading
Posted in Justice, LWF, Youth participation
