The participants at Camp Noah in Pratt City, an area of Birmingham, AL, had quite a surprise yesterday when First Lady Michelle Obama came to visit. The camp is a ministry begun by Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota in 1997 to help children affected by disasters process the experience. It was being hosted by Lutheran Ministries of Alabama in Pratt City as part of their response to the devastating tornado in April 2011.

The First Lady was able to greet many of the children presonally and even took home some of the healthy treats they were putting together as part of their program. It was a great experience for those present and a nice affirmation of the good work of Camp Noah. A wonderful example of how in times of disaster our church takes seriously the role of being there for the long haul, even after the news cameras have left. And sometimes when they come back.

To learn more about the good work being done see: Camp Noah | Lutheran Ministries of Alabama

You can also learn more about the even from local news coverage (short ads before most videos):

• Special visitor in Pratt City: Series of videos. The first one has a statement from Nancy Beers, Director of Camp Noah, and the second one has a good overview of the program.
• First Lady Obama visits Birmingham: Really like the statement of the First Lady at the end of the video. It’s great our church, through our disaster response work, can be a part of what she’s talking about.

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

As drought continues to affect many of the areas across the US and abroad, I share the following new resource from the ELCA worship unit. It includes a suggested litany, prayers, hymns and readings around the theme of drought.

You can download the resource here: Worship Resources – Drought

For resources during other times of natural disaster please see the ELCA Worship page.

Lutheran Ministries of Alabama, the local Lutheran Disaster Response affiliate in Alabama, has partnered with the city of Clay to offer long-term recovery for victims of the January 2012 tornado that affected 30% of residence. This is a great example of both how disaster response is always a local response and how our role may not be as first responders but that Lutheran Disaster Response is there for the long-haul.

To learn more check out:

• the video report of the local NBC station: Long-term tornado recovery program underway in Clay
• the press release covering the partnership with an overview of Restore: LMA-CLAY Press Release about Restore

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

The Asian Rural Institute, located in Tochigi, Japan, has been dedicated to training grassroots rural leaders from Asia, Africa and the Pacific since 1973. In this way they have been living out their calling as global neighbor. Yet, since the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in March 2011 they have also worked to make a concerted effort to be this same type of neighbor at home. The ELCA, through our Disaster Response program, has been working with them in this process, particularly helping to rebuild some of their damaged buildings so that they can continue to be a good neighbor. I thought it would be good to give a quick update on how ARI has been responding.

Rebuilding
New buildings that will help facilitate the work of ARI are hoped to be done in August. There will be new community space and classrooms in the new Koinonia (Greek word used to denote intimate community) House. The ARI shop has found a new space to help promote the products produced by the school. There is also a new Administration Annex to proived reception space for visitors, printing, meeting space and a computer lab. This space is made available in part through gifts to ELCA Disaster Response.

Is My Food/Soil/Water Radioactive
One of the affects of the devastating earthquake and tsunami was damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Since that time there has been a fear around radioactive contamination. The question of whether food, soil or water is safe is simple to answer, providing you have a $40,000 Gamma Spectrometer to read the level of radioactivity. Recognizing that this type of equipment is not sitting in everyone’s living room ARI has made their Gamma Spectrometer and training on how to use it freely available to people who want to test their soil, food and water. These people range from local residents testing their gardens, to farmers testing their soil for growing to a Christian school which tests its food each day. In this way they are helping their neighbors have a little more peace of mind in the midsts of a frightening situation.

I’ll Take My Oil Green
Another affect of the radiation leak at the Fukushima plant was Cesium contamination of soil, including at ARI. To address this situation in a sustainable way, ARI is growing soy beans. They are working with local farmers to do the same. The reason for this is that soy bean plants actually take Cesium out of the soil, storing it in their stalks, and leaving the oil void of radiation. So they are growing a crop that can be sold while addressing the problem of contaminated soil. Also, in a sign of knowing their community they are using soy beans, even though other plants like sunflowers have a higher absorption rate of Cesium. This is because the local farmers have a equipment and experience for growing soy beans but not for sunflowers. So they are meeting the needs of the neighbor by first knowning what these needs are and what resources the neighbor has.

Go With What You Know
With these new projects they are still keeping up their work training grassroots leaders around the wider region. They had 27 graduates in the class of 2012 from as far away as Brazil. We give thanks for this great ministry of being neighbor, whether that be across the street or around the globe.

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

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

My name is Matt Ley and I am the Program Interpreter for ELCA Disaster Response. The last weekend in June I was in Minot, ND for the anniversary of the flooding that took place there last year. The horns that signaled the final evacuation blew in the early afternoon of June 22, 2011 and so this date was observed as the official anniversary though the floodwaters stayed for over a month.

It was a bittersweet trip as I had both the joy of reconnecting with those I had met during my last trip in January (along with the joy of meeting more of the amazing cloud of witnesses working there) yet also the pain of seeing how disaster can take it’s toll on both the physical as well as emotional/spiritual landscape of a community. I was many times reminded of something I learned in my Pastoral Care class at seminary: in moments of care it is not the caregiver who bears Christ into the situation but the one who suffers, for that is where Christ is most present. The role of the caregiver is to affirm that presence and help the one who suffers to see it.

This post is a bit later than I was hoping since upon returning there was the need to respond to the newest wave of disasters that hit throughout the US. Yet, in this time I have also been able to look back and reflect upon the days I spent in Minot. In that time I decided to build off this learning from class and do a reflection piece on where I saw Christ present during this anniversary time of looking back and looking forward instead of a traditional report.

The Ministry of Claiming & Abiding
I saw Christ present in the pastors I met in Minot. Ministry can be taxing in the best of times, so in times of disaster it can at times seem overwhelming. It can seem that one’s faith and ability may not be sufficient for the task of caring for others so in need while also being one of those affected. Yet in those I met I found a deep abiding faith. It was a faith that was able to own the fatigue and tragedy of the situation personally experienced and still (pro)claim Christ’s continuing presence. I affirm Christ in the gift of presence these leaders bring to their community, the gift of suffering with those who suffer while still holding and pointing to the cross.

The Body of Christ in Operation
It was overwhelming to walk into Hope Village and see the buildings that were nothing more than blue prints when I visited in January. To see trailer after trailer, for housing volunteers, for cooking, this one for showers was amazing, all bearing the names of denominations who have helped bring this village to life. It was truly the body of Christ with moving limbs, a sharp mind, breathing lungs and beating heart (along with a full stomach of ever present cookies from a thankful community). As any new body it had moments of learning how to coordinate movement and learn it has. I affirm Christ in the beautiful example of Christ’s people bringing together a greater unity through their diversity of gifts.

Giving From Abundance
Peace Lutheran in Burlington, ND (a few miles outside of Minot) was one of the four ELCA congregations affected by the flood. They have been working with Mission Builders to build a new wing onto their church since they lost the use of their basement in the flooding. One of the aspects of this partnership is that Peace Lutheran agreed to provide a meal each Saturday for the crew of Mission Builders as they worked. The congregation decided this was not enough and opened up the meal to the entire community of Burlington as both a thank you and an invitation. I was able to attend one of these meals and was struck by how something as seemingly as simple as a meal could bear so much import (Last Supper anyone?). I affirm Christ in this act of giving from the gift of abundance even in perceived scarcity.

The Power of Signs
One of the things you might see while driving through Minot are little yellow yard signs. These signs began popping up soon after the flood waters receded with the simple phrase “I’m Coming Back”. They were a simple and profound way for the community to show it’s resiliency and hope. As I attended the opening of Oak Park, one of the main parks in Minot, the entrance road was covered with these signs. Yet, there was one small change, the Coming had been taped over, leaving “I’m Back”. I affirm Christ’s presence in this reminder of a community’s ability for resiliency and hope.

The Spirit’s Permanent Address
The greatest place I saw Christ’s presence was also the most subtle. It was in the seemingly ordinary moments, conversation around plans for future campus ministry, the familiarity of Lutheran liturgy, sitting in and discussing the history of the Stave Church in the Scandinavian Heritage Park, running a 5K with a local pastor who beat me by a step. In these and the many other “ordinary” moments I had was the reminder that though the Spirit may vacation in the miraculous its permanent address is in these day-to-day moments. I affirm Christ in the fact that ministry and life go on in the midst of disaster as the Spirit continues to empower and sustain us.

These are just a few examples of where I saw Christ present in Minot. In them is the reminder that Christ has not forgotten the people of Minot and neither have we. May God continue to sustain us all in the days, months and years to come.

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To learn how you can continue to support the effort in Minot please check out the Hope Village website for volunteer opportunities and the ELCA Disaster Response website to donate.

The Lutheran World Federation program working in Kenya and Djibouti just released their annual report for 2011. A major part of their work in 2011 was around the drought which struck the Horn of Africa and the subsequent refugee crisis as the drought mixed with civil unrest in areas of Somalia. The following is one of the story reports giving a view of incoming refugees to the LWF-run camp of Dadaab located in eastern Kenya.

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Shelter from the drought

Ahmed has a wife and four children, and that is all.

His family fled hunger in Somalia after the herd of cattle he owned were all gone and there was nothing to feed them. To make the trip, he sold his farm to his extended family and used the money to hire transport at the border to get them to the Dadaab refugee camps in eastern Kenya. Ahmed and his family set out from their home near Baidoa, one of the regions hardest-hit by the famine, but were stuck at the border for quite some time before they finally decided to sell their holdings and buy passage for the journey to Dadaab.

They have lived on the outskirts of the camps for a month and five days. In 2011, over 100,000 people poured into Dadaab, fleeing from drought and violence in Somalia. Some stay with relatives or other families from their clan, but many pitched their tents on the outskirts and stayed there. These tents sat on sandy orange dirt, a long way from water and other amenities.

Those working in the camps were stretched to their limits and beyond trying to meet the needs of this wave of humanity. But refugees and workers alike have had the pressure relieved as those camping on the outskirts were settled into planned camps.

All of the land in and around Dadaab belongs to the Kenyan government, who have generously donated massive tracts for the refugees to settle on. Since mid-August, [Lutheran World Federation] has been relocating refugees living on the outskirts to permanent plots within the official camp.

For people who have experienced so much change and dislocation, there is some resistance to moving again. Some of the refugees need convincing that their new homes will be better than the old. When it came time to decamp from the brushy outskirts of the Hagaderah camp to relocate to the new Kambioos settlement, some Somali refugees wasted no time at all.

Morning cooking fires still smoldered nearby as Abdullah, 50, prepared his donkey cart for the short journey. All around him, other members of this family rolled up mats, folded tarpulins and collected their belongings. Even small children carried their bags to the trucks and buses waiting to ferry them to Kambioos.

“We were fleeing from drought and fighting in Lower Juba,” says Abdullah, who travelled with his wife and their seven children. “I don’t know how many kilometers it was, but it was a very long journey. All of us made it here alive, but some people were very seriously ill when we arrived.”

Their group, which he estimates at one hundred or more, lost eight donkeys along the way. The rest of their livestock perished in the drought before they ever left Lower Juba.

After they arrived, they huddled together in makeshift dwellings outside of the Hagadera camp, where they endured weeks living a long walk away from latrines and a clean water source.

“Water is the main problem,” says one man. “Our family is eight people, and we only get twenty liters for the day.” That’s just 2 ½ liters per person per day; far less than the water used in a single flush of most Western toilets. “We are expecting that life there in Kambioos will be somehow gentler,” said Abdullah.

When the first members of the group arrive at Kambioos after the short bus trip they find sturdy tents erected on well-defined plots, and there is a greater sense of privacy. A large new water tank sits in the middle of the camp atop a pedestal of sand bags, and the camp is outfitted with latrines and other sanitary features.

Afra Mohammed and his family of three are among the first to arrive and he is immediately relieved that they have their own tent instead of sharing with another family.

“We are ready for anything because we are refugees who are looking for a place to settle,” he said. “But I am happy to have this plot.” He echoes the hope of many of the refugees who have fled to Kenya, which is one of stability and a life away from drought and civil war. Ahmed also sounds the same note as the other refugees, “I am not thinking about going back to Somalia. There’s no food to sustain us.”