Refugee Awareness & Giving

Distance From Home - Translating Global Refugee Movement to Song from brian foo on Vimeo.

As American Collegiate Football season launches tomorrow, I somehow can't get into it. After picking up my son from Los Angeles Airport today, we drove the scenic coastal route back to our San Pedro home. We stopped along the way at Redondo Beach to take in the beauty of the LA coastline. I can't seem to get out of my mind the photos which came out yesterday of the Syrian children washed up on the Turkish shore.

The photos of the drowned Syrian children seems to have awakened the “west” about the need for stepping up in helping the newest wave of Middle Eastern refugees.

On the 8th September I continue writing this post...

Charities have reported a surge in donations since the publication of the photograph of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy who drowned on a Turkish beach, with Save the Children raising £1.2m in a matter of days. - The Guardian, 8 September

This is from 2 hours ago, the Guardian reports that UK relief agencies are cash strapped. However, I believe Americans are wary about cash donations, even to our larger aid organizations (after the recent debacle reported on how American Red Cross has not used donations for Haiti well).

 

So who can you trust in regard to giving toward this crisis?

Jim and I serve with CRM and we have met those who lead our work based in Lebanon. Here is what the CRM President wrote to me today:

We have huge needs and we have the means to meet both physical and spiritual needs of thousands of refugees throughout the Middle East. CRM has a fund — 9990 Syria — which is specifically designed for Syrian relief and ministry efforts. All of this goes toward the refugee efforts.

 

We can absorb and put to work as much funding as people can move our way, and the results are really good! For example, we are partnered with Heart for Lebanon which is one of the most respected and effective relief and development agencies in the region. While relief is not our forte, this partnership makes up for it and we bring a evangelistic and spiritual focus to the partnership that makes it a powerful combination.

Through our Middle East Relief Initiative, we have the opportunity to uniquely impact refugees through the following programs:

1. Relief for Syrian refugees: This program provides supporting education for refugee children, direct relief (food, clothes, etc.), and counseling. As a result of CRM’s relief efforts, the number of Syrian refugees participating in Discovery Bible Study (DBS) groups continues to grow. We now we have 525 groups among Syrian refugees with several new groups starting each week. Furthermore, the existing churches in Lebanon have observed our work among Syrian refugees and are slowly moving to cooperate and participate, which we will believe will have a positive impact on the growth and health of the Church in that region.
2. Relief for Iraqi refugees: More than 1 million Iraqis have had to flee their homes, many to Erbil. Our team in Northern Iraq is directly engaged in the refugee camps with basic humanitarian relief. In the process, over 50 DBS groups have been started.
3. Trauma counseling and inner healing prayer among abused women: The low view of women, common within Islam and exaggerated among groups like ISIS, has resulted in large numbers of women who have suffered unimaginable abuse. CRM has a growing team of well-trained national women who minister regularly among abused women, providing trauma counseling and inner healing prayer. As a result there are more than 200 DBS groups among abused women in the region with more multiplying weekly. Many are second-generation groups led by the abused women who have become followers of Christ. Another team is currently forming to work with Iraqi women who have fled ISIS.

Here’s more of my notes of the highlights of my reading in the past 3 days:

 

Ann Voskamp has posted 2 articles this week giving ACT NOW suggestions of how to get involved.

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/09/why-now-is-the-churchs-moment-it-will-take-all-of-us-not-to-miss-it-wewelcomerefugees/

http://www.aholyexperience.com/2015/09/5-ways-to-stand-up-be-the-church-in-the-worlds-worst-refugee-crisis-since-world-war-ii/

 

https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/category/christian-refugees/  (and other posts…)

 

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/current/syria-crisis-appeal/ 

 

*I like the presentation of the stats, graphics, interviews and photos here, though wouldn't send my donations their direction: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/syria.php

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/08/28/activists-want-us-to-do-more-to-help-christians-fleeing-isis/

 

You might have this questions: Why are the refugees NOT settling in the wealthy nearby countries (Arabic speaking, Muslim majority)? Quora has an interesting discussion on this. This infographic came from a muslim website (but I can't find it in a search on their site now). Shame on them! Should we start a trend with #stepupGCC (GCC=Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman. countries import THOUSANDS of workers from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, etc for manual labor, but they don't want the muslim refugee neighbors).

*from February 2015

there isn't currently on up on the site that shows it like this.

I also read over various websites for refugee resettlement programs in Los Angeles, and it’s quite overwhelming! Will have to sort more of that out later.