Below is a video clip from Redux this last week on Immigration.
Yesterday, during meetings at World Relief in Baltimore, I heard a presentation from one of World Relief’s leaders on Refugees and Immigration. I highly recommend picking up Welcoming the Stranger by Jenny Hwang and Matthew Sorens.
Immigration from :redux on Vimeo.
Below is a picture of a tent city just before sunset in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The degree of displacement and trauma from the earthquake five months ago is visible everywhere. Less obvious, is the complexity involved in relief and development in Haiti:
- The hospitals in danger of having to close because of all the free medical assistance which has come to Haiti – How do the Haitian hospitals compete?
- The mothers selling clothes on the side of the streets who are affected by large scale handouts of clothing. How do they make a living?
- The men who lose income from shoveling and discarding rubble because of the endless stream of church volunteers eager to help out. How do they find work?
The long term recovery and health of Haiti is a topic more convoluted and complicated than I’ve ever tried to wrap my brain around.
We’re here at the World Relief offices in Haiti with 8 other pastors, the CEO and his wife and several technical experts from World Relief Baltimore. Our task is to learn, engage the conversation and, ultimately, help craft a collaborative vision for how North American Churches can partner with Haitian Churches in the long term rebuilding of Haiti.
I don’t think we’re going to be much help. The World Relief staff here is amazing – I just want them to tell me how I can help them, and I’m in.
Check out this reference to Antioch in the latest World Relief e-newsletter. Super cool!!
Click on the image below to see a fuller account of Antioch’s trip to Sudan on the World Relief website.
Below is a short video that Matt Smith, Ben Edwards and Beth Fischer produced while they were in South Sudan about the upcoming elections in Sudan.
Sudan is the largest country in Africa and has their first elections in over two decades coming up on April 11th. The churches in Sudan work tirelessly for peace as peace and security is essential to almost everything else in their society and ministry in their churches.
The tagline, Salam Sudan, simply means “peace” in Sudan. World Relief is asking churches in America to partner in prayer with churches in Sudan for peace in Sudan.
Make sure to check back to worldrelief.org/sudan over the next several days for more videos and information on the elections in Sudan.
Salam Sudan from World Relief NEXT on Vimeo.
World Relief just received their text-in fundraising information.
Text “Donate” to 50555 if you would like to contribute $10 to World Relief’s ongoing efforts in Haiti.
(It’s actually pretty fun if you’ve never done it… I just gave it a shot. You have to follow up with a “yes” when you get pinged back. Seriously, it’s so fun that it is going to kill you with curiosity if you don’t try texting in that number right now!!!)
Check out the overview video for World Relief NEXT. We showed this along with a presentation by Ann Mara at the “Official Launch” of NEXT this past weekend.
Pretty cool stuff!!
The World Relief NEXT project is going to be launching here in Bend in the next two weeks. It’s as cool of a thing as I’ve ever seen!!
One of the goals is to create a collaboration of northwest churches that can be more meaningfully involved in missions through collaboration than alone.
Below is the e-mail that Ann Mara sent to local pastors inviting them to a special luncheon. Make sure to holler if you would like to find out more information for your church!!
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Dear I am writing to invite you to lunch on December 4th, at 1pm, at the Pastini Restaurant, in the Old Mill Shopping District.
As we prepare to launch the World Relief NEXT Project (www.worldreliefnext.org) here in Bend, we would welcome an opportunity to sit down with you and explain our vision and goals, and to see how we can enter together into a collaborative approach towards global missions.
We will be joined by our esteemed friend and colleague Emmanuel Ndikumana, who will be visiting Bend from Burundi, East Africa. We invited Emmanuel to help us launch the World Relief NEXT Project, and to communicate his view on Missions from an African perspective. Emmanuel is a graduate of All Nations Christian College in the UK, and holds a B.A. (Hon) degree in Biblical and Intercultural studies and an M.A. degree in Aspects of Christian Missiology.
We hope that you are able to make this luncheon, and if you cannot, that you would suggest someone else in your place. Please RSVP by December 2nd, to this address.
Many thanks,
Ann Mara.(Project Manager)
ann@worldreliefnext.org
This next Thursday there will be a lecture on Church and Missions at The Kilns by Don Golden.
Don is senior vice president of church engagement at World Relief in Baltimore, Maryland. His passion to help churches help the poor and oppressed has taken him to more than 60 countries.
Don’s new book with Zondervan, called Jesus Wants to Save Christians, just released this week.
Don will be in town for discussions around World Relief NEXT as well as his lecture at the Kilns.
Plan on being there from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.!!
Just had a great meeting with Lorelei Mah, Director of Volunteer Resources at World Relief and wife of the CEO and President Sammy Mah.
One of the things that people are always saying is that there aren’t tangible ways for people to go oversees or be directly engaged… and I was amazed at all of the opportunities available for people to get involved in the world that nobody even knows about.
Check out all of the oversees opportunities on their web site here.
(Here is a picture of Lorelei with all of the current oversees volunteers listed on her board.)
Had a full day of meeting with the World Relief folks here in Baltimore.
Dan and I are staying in a makeshift room at the offices known affectionately as “Hotel Nicaragua“.
The meetings have been amazing and World Relief has some pretty quality people doing some pretty amazing work around the world.
Some random thoughts:
- Why don’t more Christians take the initiative to get involved in stuff?
- Why does the World Relief firewall block all web sites with music or video streaming?
- We have some pretty talented people at Antioch — just wait till the launch of the World Relief NEXT Project at Antioch in December!
- I like people who dream big!!
- Why do I have jet lag so bad when it is only a three hour difference? I’m a lightweight…
So I’m heading out at 4:00 a.m. tomorrow (that’s early!) to head to Baltimore with my friends Dan, Ann, Beth and Bill to meet with the folks at World Relief.
It’ll be the first big step in getting the World Relief NEXT project off and running.
It should be tons of fun and I’m expecting some pretty cool things to develop!!
P.S. Did I mention 4 am?
I like little things in life.
Today I got excited by seeing The Kilns Bookstore and World Relief NEXT sign go up.
Tomorrow night (Tuesday), Allison Schroeder who is the International Church Partnerships Director for World Relief will be giving a talk on Developmental Issues in Modern Missions.
Allison is in town from Baltimore for a series of meetings to further the joint project between World Relief and Antioch.
She has a wealth of field experience as well as insight into the North American Church’s efforts to be involved significantly in missions.
The talk will be at the Kilns at 7:00 p.m.
Following Allison’s presentation, Dan Brose who is the Senior Programs Advisor for World Relief will be sharing a little bit about the vision behind the new World Relief Next project.
These are the kinds of weeks, opportunities and people that make ministry fun!!
Yesterday I received word that the research and development initiative called World Relief: Next Project was approved and put into motion by the Executive Board of World Relief.
The Next Project is a creative idea birthed between Antioch and World Relief as a collaborative partnership to explore new concepts for missions and church partnerships using the Northwest as the testing grounds.
The project will focus on the Africa Great Lakes region and will have many different facets including development of materials for use in educating North American churches on social justice and human rights issues.
This collaborative effort has been a pretty amazing thing to watch as it developed from dream to proposal to reality!!
For more information on the initiative, read Ann Moran’s article on the web site.
Below is a writeup on our guest speaker at Antioch this Sunday.
It should be pretty fun!!
Stephan Bauman is the Senior Vice President of Programs for World Relief. Stephan previously served as Country Director for World Relief Rwanda and Director of International Programs for World Hope International. He worked for Mercy Ships International directing programs and training for over 300 staff on the Anastasis, a hospital ship based in Africa. He also worked as a consultant for Anderson & Co. Stephan is a Certified Public Accountant, an ordained minister, and holds a master’s in International Development (Johns Hopkins University), a master’s in Intercultural Studies (Wheaton College), and a bachelor’s in Business (University of Wisconsin). Stephan is married to Belinda and has two sons — Joshua and Caleb.
Last night we got to hear a presentation from KK Lee.
KK is the technical director for HIV/Aids in Asia for World Relief.
It’s been a while since I’ve listened to a good testimony and last night I was blown away. KK lived for 21 years in Malasia with an unrepaired cleft palate and couldn’t even speak. At age 21 he received a surgery, learned how to talk and then embarked on an 11 year backpacking trip around the world. During that time he learned to speak, read and write four different languages and obtained a college degree in Florida in just 2 1/2 years while working two jobs.
Dan Brose introduced KK as a real life “Forrest Gump” because of all the amazing things that he’s simply stumbled into in his life.
Anyway, it sure was nice to hear a story that puts my own problems (I just mailed my taxes off) into perspective. It was also an amazing reminder that little things like a surgery for someone in a poor country can make such a huge difference.
We’re blessed to have the World Relief Regional Director for HIV/AIDS in Asia joining us this Monday for a talk and Q & A. Anyone is welcome to come!
Below is the little event blurb:
Join us Monday evening, April 14th from 7-9 pm at Summers Hardwood Flooring to hear KK Lee the Asian Regional HIV/AIDS Technical Advisor for World Relief. Lee has a BA in Entomology and Horticulture and a Masters of Divinity.
Prior to joining World Relief, KK was a Project Supervisor for Cedarfund (HK) based in Xishuangbanna and Kunming, Yunnan, China. As the Project Supervisor, he managed integrated community development projects and led HIV/AIDS prevention education projects in high schools.
Come out and listen to him share his experiences in Asia.
