Amidst the situation of refugees overflowing the camps at Dadaab and reports that sexual and gender-based violence has been on the rise, it is good to know that a program like the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) run “Safe Haven” exists. The goal of this program is to create a safe space for women and girls in the Dadaab camps who have become victims of violence or undue societal/familial pressures, like rape and early marriages. In traditional Somali culture women are promised to their husbands when the women are still just teenagers, usually around 15, in exchange for a dowry. In the setting of a refugee camp Somali men from other countries come in and offer to pay the dowry for girls they do not know. The financial constraints of living in a refugee camps make the offer of marrying a daughter off to a stranger in exchange for a cash dowry too enticing for some families.

Besides its role in creating a safe space for these women and girls, the program also works to help women find sustainable ways out of their situations. It does so by offering counseling, literacy classes and income-generation programs. Some of these latter programs have become quite successful and popular among the camps with the products being made selling out as quickly as they can be place on the shelf.

These are the types of efforts that define what is meant by disaster response and development. Working through LWF, we are not just responding to the immediate and necessary needs of refugees but also to the long-term, sustainable solutions that will help them as they move forward into a new definition of normalicy post-disaster.

For the full-story, read the LWF feature “A Life Free from Violence – The Safe Haven in Dadaab”.

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Gifts to ELCA International Disaster Response allow the church to respond globally in times of need. Donate now.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has created a great new web portal that gives up-to-date and easy to read statistics, reports and stories of the current drought in the Horn of Africa. The portal offers you the option of getting a regional overview or drilling down to information of specific refugee camps, like those in Dadaab and Dollo Ado. It also gives an bit of information about organizations working within the region.

I would highly recommend checking it out to get a better grasp of the severity of the situation and how people and organizations are responding. I’d particularly recommend checking out the overview of Dadaab and Dollo Ado, both administerd by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), as well as the page on the LWF.

Main Page | Overview of Dadaab | Overview of Dollo Ado | LWF Activities

Rarely do we get to hear the story of refugees in their own words. Usually we hear about the refugee “situation” or a reporter tells us a particular refugee’s story that might involve a quote or two. So when I come across a story like the one from Moulid Hujale, a refugee at the Lutheran World Federation-monitered camp of Dadaab, my ears perk up. His writing gives a very real and candid look at how the situation looks from a refugee’s perspective.

It also gives us pause and reminds us that though our immediate response to refugee needs is important and very pressing, for some the status of refugee will extend far beyond these first life-give cups of water and porridge. Through ELCA Disaster Response and the World Hunger program this church will continue to be there.

But really this story is Moulid’s and it’s his voice that should ring through. So I invite you to meet Moulid and read what he has to say about life as a refugee…

Moulid’s Story

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Gifts to ELCA International Disaster Response allow the church to respond globally in times of need. Donate now.

I had this set of questions come up a few times in conversation over the past week. Usually it was from people who are out in congregations sharing the message of our work and relaying back the sense they were feeling. And it got me to thinking. Though they may strike some as inappropriate or attacking questions, I think they are totally legitimate and actually quite exciting. In these three questions we find the dual nature of the task we who work to communicate the work of our church face with every new situation.

This dual nature is to first communicate information of the situation and context in which it takes place (the Where? and What?). Secondly our role is to share our motivation for being involved (the Why?), of sharing how a particular situation relates to, is connected with and fundamentally is the continuing story of God’s work within the world. And beyond this, the person who is willing to ask these questions and entertain our answers is already engaged! I say the Spirit is present in these questions and it is our privilege to live into that presence.

The Where and the What

So now how does this translate from theory to reality? How could we go about answering these questions for this specific disaster? Well, to begin with the Horn of Africa is on the central eastern coast of Africa, and includes the countries of Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea. For this disaster we also include the country of Kenya. The area is being affected by a major drought which is affecting over 12 million people. Many people, mainly Somalis, are leaving their homes, walking up to 30 straight days and hundreds of miles to find food and water. The ELCA is working through the Lutheran World Federation, which administers the major refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. We are also working with our companion churches in Kenya and Ethiopia. For more information you can check out the ELCA Disaster page Horn of Africa Drought.

The Why

We care first and foremost because Christ’s call has always been for obedience to God through service to the neighbor, the stranger, the least of these, even the enemy. Basically, when we encounter suffering in the world, no matter how remote the corner we are called to engage. An important piece to remember is that we are not called to run ourselves dry or to become doormats. We are also called by Christ to love the neighbor as ourselves, which can also mean we are to love ourselves as we love our neighbor. And though it is hard to swallow sometimes Christ also tells us that we will have the poor with us always, that suffering will forever be an aspect of this world until Christ comes again.

Another reason we are called to response is that as the Apostle Paul says, when one member of the body of Christ suffers, all suffer. As we learn more about the global nature of this body we can see how our response to global (and local) disasters is a fulfillment of our duty to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Their suffering is our suffering. Our joy in response is their joy. As the body of Christ we live and breathe as one out of many.

So to summarize we are called to act out of the gifts God has given us but to make sure we remember we too are children of God in need of support and the rest of God’s loving embrace. And we are called to remember that we are part of the global body of Christ and as we respond to the needs of our brothers and sisters half-way round the world or just next door, it is always to the same body.

A Note on Response

Yet, even though we are called to respond, the church has learned through trial and error that there are positive and negative ways to do so. We have have learned that response must be done through relationship, that wherever we go Christ is already working there and that the local population is almost always that best resource for determining and implementing our response.

And so is the case in this disaster. We have long-standing relationships as a member of the Lutheran World Federation and with our companions, the Kenyan Evangelical Lutheran Church (KELC) and the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY). Our response has been and will continue to be guided by our relationship with these, our brothers and sisters in Christ. As they continue to be the hands, voice and feet of Christ in their communities, we are blessed to be able to give our gifts and prayers to help them in their good work.

Conclusion

What really is at the base of all this is that we are called to share and engage the story of God’s people and creation. The reason any suffering calls us to engagement is because it happens to actual people and in actual places. Our calling is to introduce these people to those around us, sharing their story and providing the links of their story to our story and showing how both exist within God’s unfolding story of redemption.

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Gifts to ELCA International Disaster Response allow the church to respond globally in times of need. Donate now.

I just read an Aug 2nd UN press briefing on the situation in the Horn of Africa that had some pretty striking statistics. It really drove home that though things are bad now, without proper intervention they can get much worse very quickly. Here are a few things that jumped out at me:

• more than 40,000 Somalis arrived at Dadaab refugee camp in July (highest one-month total in camp’s 20 year history)
• from April to June, tens of thousands of people had died in Southern Somalia because of joint crisis of drought and increased fighting within the country (almost half were under 5 years old)
• over 2.3 million accutely malnurished children in the Horn of Africa (over half a million of whom will die if they do not get help in the next few weeks)
• half of all Somalis have acute malnutrition

Please consider giving through the link below to help stave the tide of this spreading crisis. To get more information please visit the ELCA Disaster Response page on the Horn of Africa Drought. You can also read the whole UN Press Briefing.

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Gifts to ELCA International Disaster Response allow the church to respond globally in times of need. Donate now.

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

I am Kevin Massey, Program Director for Lutheran Disaster Response.  I’m in Minot North Dakota this week connecting with these flood affected communities and people that I met last month when I was here.  Volunteer operations are underway to help clean up and plan for repair and rebuilding a little down the road.  Information about how you can help is below.

But first, I began my travels last week visiting communities along the Missouri River.  The ELCA Western Iowa Synod organized workshops at St. John Lutheran Church in Council Bluffs Iowa and at Augustana Lutheran Church in Sioux City Iowa.  We gathered Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Assembly of God pastors from Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota serving in communities that have lived all spring and summer under the threat of flooding.

When I was driving from Council Bluffs Iowa to Sioux City Iowa, I had to follow a detour to avoid a portion of Interstate 29 that is closed due to flooding.  I remembered how nearly six months ago I stood on an overpass of this same Interstate 29 north of Fargo and saw it underwater.  So many communities have spent months and months enduring flooding that seems endless.

From the Missouri River Valley I flew to Minot North Dakota.  When I was in Minot a month ago the water was still up and we hadn’t been able to assess yet the damages to so many homes, churches, and business.  The water is down now, and the results of catastrophic and heart breaking.  Thousands of people remain displaced.  Thousands of homes are ruined, some beyond repair. 

I delivered cleaning supplies to a volunteer group working on gutting out a flooded home in Minot.  This home is across the corner from Christ Lutheran Church.   I met three wonderful Lutheran volunteers working at this home.   Dennis and Diane Wiesenborn, members of St. John Lutheran Church in Fargo and Vic Voth, a member of Concordia Lutheran Church in Red Wing Minnesota were working on gutting out the home of a Minot couple in their eighties. 

These wonderful volunteers are what this ministry is all about.  Lutherans from around the country give so much to love and serve their neighbors.

Later I visited the flooded home of Pastor Heather Brown and her husband David Iversen  in Minot.  Pastor Brown serves the Trinity Lutheran Parish of Glenburn and Lansford North Dakota north of Minot.  Pastor Brown’s home was flooded two feet over the first story. Heather described the generosity and hard work of parishioners of her parish who pitched in and accomplished the necessary gutting of the home.  Pastor Brown and her husband are arranging to live in a FEMA trailer on the property of one of the parishioners until repairs to their home can be accomplished.  Heather shared, “We could not have made it through this without our wonderful parishioners!”

I admired Pastor Brown for her courage and optimism in the face of her loss.  She described that so many people lost more and have harder rebuilding ahead of them.  She brings a sense of hope that even though many face hard work, they are not alone.

Please pray for the people of all the areas of North Dakota that have been affected by this catastrophic flooding.  Many worry about being forgotten and we can remember them continuously in our prayers.  We pray also for those affected by many other disasters, such as tornados across the country in places like Joplin Missouri and Cullman Alabama. 

While volunteer operations in many parts of the country are still unfolding, Lutheran Disaster Response in North Dakota is ready to host volunteer groups from the region and outside the region to help in clean up in Minot and other communities affected by flooding.  Please share this opportunity with your local Lutheran congregations and organizations. 

• Rubber boots/rubber gloves
• Work gloves
• Goggles or safety glasses
• N-95 masks or any mask that has two straps on it
• Hammers
• Brooms
• Large buckets
• Pliers
• Wonderbars or crowbars.