Faith Communities Council of Victoria: Statement on Syrian and Iraqi Humanitarian Crisis

#AID NOT BOMBS

Plz continue 2 send a msg that we should send #AidNotBombs & that #WeCanDoBetter.That we are #strongEnough #auspol pic.twitter.com/ztZLjeK0is

— lydia_shelly (@lydia_shelly) September 5, 2015

Syria's children - and Syria's people - ARE precious in God's sight

 

Dear Friends,

Like most of you, we are heartbroken by all the news we have seen in recent days as Syrians have been forced to flee their home in search of safety.  What can we say other than our broken old world truly needs our Saviour Jesus?

Today, we have launched a call to our Immigration Minister, urging him to give real and practical assistance to those in need on behalf of all Australians.  In partnership with others working in the asylum seeker and refugee space, we have called on Mr Dutton to both accept an emergency intake of Syrian refugees and to allocate significant financial assistance to the United Nations for their work addressing this global crisis.

We believe that our call echoes the heart of our God, who always hears the cry of the oppressed and who is the author of all peace.

Will you please stand with us, as we call on Mr Dutton and pray that he would have the courage to lead a national response to this tragedy that is marked by compassion, generosity and a profound sense of the value of every single human life?

And would you please take the time to share this email and the petition with those in your world who also have a heart to see God’s justice reign here on earth?

With thanks for your support, as always,

From Kylie, Tim, Justin, Jarrod and all the Common Grace team

Common Grace
http://www.commongrace.org.au/ -=-=-

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Another "NO" added to Tony Abbott's repertoire

Tony Abbott unmoved by Liberal calls for more Syria refugee help #thumbsdown http://t.co/zf9KH92fGA

— Advocacy at St Pauls (@StPaulsVoice) September 5, 2015

BEING KEPT ON ICE? What is happening in #Ballarat, #StArnaud, #Castlemaine, #Central Highlands #Western Victoria

Picture from here

Many Australians will have watched 4 Corners last night. Australians will have seen #Ballarat get an ingnominious mention in despatches.

Victoria is heading for a state election on 29 November. It will be of interest to see if, as a result of national media attention, all political parties will make promises - futile or otherwise - to address the almost complete lack of attention to what is happening in central and western Victoria. 

There are people living outside the metropolis of Melbourne. 

There are causes other than the Victorian Premier's racing interests.

Many people in the seat of Wendouree in Ballarat will have received a letter from sitting MP Sharon Knight. In that letter she says "we need to do much better to provide the services, facilities and opportunities local people need." 

She also says that "My highest priority has always been jobs". Jobs are a very high priority - because without a job and without a decent income enabling human beings to lead a decent life we lose so much. Massive unemployment - which is hitting certain areas of Australia - is probably the most corrosive component on human communities. Social isolation - whether it is because of drugs, illness, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language or religion - is probably second on the list. Massive unemployment and large scale social isolation can mean that a community is, quite literally, "stuffed".

In the Federal sphere, Ballarat's local MP is Catherine King, the Shadow Minister for Health.

Those who watched 4 Corners last night will be shocked by the overwhelming lack of funding for care for those seeking to forego drug addiction. It appears that the only place in the Ballarat area is Tabor House with its very limited capacity. To read more about Tabor House, please go to this site. 

Given the lack of knowledge by government and police which undergirds the inability of both to act constructively in this dire situation, and given the frequent bad press of religious organisations, it is interesting to note that the only provision for constructive help in battling the ice epidemic in central and western Victoria is in a house with limited bed capacity run by a Christian organisation.

Four Corners has done a great service in portraying a great problem and a great need in Australian society. But to give credit where credit is due, the Four Corners story may have begun in Ballarat itself with this article in The Courier.

Wants, needs and responsibility in the light of the #ACOSS report and what is required of us

I have discovered to-day a blog called The Thin Bread Line whose author is David Mansfield.  He has written here ...

We had family around for lunch the other day.
My three year old grandson went straight to the freezer and helped himself to an ice-cream. Helen intercepted him in time and told him to wait until after lunch, only to have him plead, ‘But Grandma, I NEED it now!’
Whoever invented the refrigerator with the freezer section at the bottom has a lot to answer for.
Of course, we can easily mistake our needs for our wants and justify our wants as our needs and in the process accumulate piles of unnecessary baggage, both around the girth and in the garage(s)!

As I was driving home from preaching at a Sydney church last Sunday I heard on the news about a report just released by ACOSS (Australian Council of Social Services). There are now one in seven Australians living below the poverty line of $400 per week. The statistics are grimmer for children and grimmer still for people from non English speaking backgrounds.
My work brings me into daily contact (mainly via email) with Christian leaders who serve communities in Africa and Asia where people live on less than a dollar a day, where children, in frighteningly large numbers, suffer from water-borne diseases, malnutrition and starvation. Some of these children don’t reach their next birthday.
While the famine in South Sudan deepens, the predictions of another Horn of Africa catastrophe are gathering pace and frequency.

PLEASE READ FURTHER AT THE THIN BREAD LINE

Mourning for those in another place - an ancient Christian tradition may not survive in modern Iraq

Picture above from here

We have heard the news reports.

What we can we see in the face of such horror.

What do we do to help in time of such massive need.

Let us seek together ways to be of some help

to or fellow Christians.

Anglican Overseas Aid
Go to the post linked here
for more detail on how to contribute.
Forms with details of how to contribute
are at the back of St Paul's 
under the Advocacy notice board

Aid to the Church in Need

Further reading:
Chaldean Catholic Church
Chaldean Christians 
Welcome to Chaldean Catholic Church 
As Iraqi Christians in U.S. watch ISIS advance,
they see 'Slow-Motion Genocide'. 

 

Concerns for South Sudan & Northern Iraq being expressed to-morrow at Breakfast at Saint Paul's - and letter writing is on the agenda too.

One of the things planned for Breakfast at Saint Paul's to-morrow is highlighting the humanitarian emergencies in South Sudan and Northern Iraq.  (To find out more please scroll down the sidebar to Labels and look up the following headings: Humanitarian emergency; South Sudan; Iraq).  

We will be distributing this weekend at the Breakfast and as Sunday's services the pew sheet appeal for Northern Iraq authorised by Archbishop Friere, the Primate. This can be downloaded from this blog if you scroll down a little further.

We will be distributing as well as Letter Writing Pack in support of the emergency in South Sudan.  Below the documents in the Letter Writing Pack are provided so that readers can put together their own packs for letter writing.  The draft letter is intended as a guide.  The parliamentarians suggested are a guide too. Readers may choose to add or subtract their own recipients.

How to help Christians, Yezidis, and other minorities fleeing Northern Iraq

Picture from The Catholic Sun

If you have been concerned about what you hear of the goings-on in Northern Iraq with regard to Christians and other minorities, here is your opportunity to do something constructive ....

Further reading:

Minorities in Iraq
Who are the Yazidis and why is ISIS hunting them?
GENOCIDE: Christians, religious minorities flee violent persecution in Iraq
No mass said in Mosul for the first time in 1600 years
Mosul

South Sudan Humanitarian Snapshot as at 15 August 2014

War and War Crimes, Famine, Human Rights violations in South Sudan

 This maps comes from the site

All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide

and Other Crimes Against Humanity

The United Nations says the deepening humanitarian emergency in South Sudan is the "worst in the world" and warns 50,000 children could die this year unless the aid effort is scaled up. But it’s largely a forgotten crisis, overshadowed by strife in other parts of the world including Gaza, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. Aid agencies say they've found it difficult to raise money to fund operations in South Sudan, despite a growing threat of famine.

Caitlin Brady, an aid worker with Save the Children in South Sudan, said about 4 million people in the country are "very, very” hungry – more than 2 million of them children.

"It’s a very dire situation," she said. "Responding to hunger is probably the number one priority. The aid community has stepped up to try and respond but we need to do more."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/south-sudan-pushed-to-the-brink-by-war-and-hunger-20140808-101rfm.html#ixzz3AJZM9qB9

Other sites of interest on this topic:
South Sudan - Wikipedia
Human Rights in South Sudan - Wikipedia 
UNICEF - South Sudan
The complexities of declaring famine in South Sudan 
Human Rights Watch - South Sudan 
UN urges investigation into human rights violations in South Sudan 
Human Rights Watch on Facebook

Please note: this article may seem glib - but it's not really.  What is happening in the former British colony of Sudan is complex.  This analogy of cowboys and cattle helps those of us who can't figure it out to come to a better understanding of the complexity of the situation.