Displaying items by tag: Refugees

Paul, a convert from Islam, now works distributing food to newly-arriving Syrian refugee families. Recently, he gave out the last food package he had for the entire month. The lady next in line started crying when she realised there was none left for her family. She told Paul that she and her children were desperate. Paul said they were out of food packages, but offered to pray for her. He also told her how he came to Jesus. As they finished praying, Paul’s phone rang with the unexpected news that another 35 food portions were available. The mother, full of wonder and gratefulness, praised God for how Jesus had answered their prayer. A few weeks later, her husband (who had been fighting with IS) came to meet Paul. He said, ‘I heard what you had done for my family. I thought about how I was in Syria killing people in the name of religion, but you love in the name of Jesus. I left the other fighters to come and meet the man who loved my family, and to learn about Jesus from you.’

Published in Praise Reports
Friday, 03 November 2017 10:46

Syria: the refugee ‘highway’

For three weeks in November, a team will be traveling along the refugee trail through Europe. They will be posting first-hand stories and sharing from their experiences as they travel from Greece to Northern Europe. They hope that their account of travelling alongside the refugees will inform us all how to pray more specifically and continue to advocate for the Syrians and other peoples from the Levant region. People can follow along, through the stories they will post online and pray with up-to-date insights by clicking on the ‘More’ link. Syria remains a nation in devastation as war and violence continues.

Published in Worldwide
Friday, 20 October 2017 10:43

East Africa: starvation in refugee camps

Famine continues, and refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda continue to fill. Church leaders in Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan have launched another desperate appeal for food aid to keep refugees and churchgoers alive until Christmas, after enduring an 18-month-long period of droughts, famine and conflict. Archbishop Stanley Ntagali of Uganda said, ‘The numbers and the need are overwhelming. I appeal to you all to help us so that we can help these helpless people, the refugees from South Sudan.’ The refugees, having fled famine and conflict in their homeland, are now living in Camp Rhino, northern Uganda. Most of their food aid is provided by Barnabas Fund, working through the Church of Uganda. Every day, 300 refugees from South Sudan arrive in the camp. The numbers have risen to 120,000, and are predicted to go even higher. A large proportion are women and children.

Published in Worldwide

‘Children are visibly traumatised and distressed, and many have stopped speaking,’ said a Save the Children team member in Bangladesh. Displaced children arriving there are exhibiting signs of trauma such as nightmares and loss of speech after witnessing horrific violence, and are in urgent need of psychological and emotional support. As well as providing food, water and shelter to more than half a million, charities have identified psychological and emotional support services as a critical need. Most of those arriving from Myanmar are women and girls: some have been raped and sexually abused. Hundreds of children are separated from their families, and report having witnessed violence first hand. Their enormous psychosocial needs are obvious to anyone walking through the camps and makeshift settlements.

Published in Worldwide
Tuesday, 03 October 2017 05:36

Prayer for North Korean Refugees

"Rescue those being led away to death"*

We are bringing you this article which was originally to highlight North Korean Refugees Day, which has past, but it brings some informative information to guide our ongoing prayers for this troubled nation…

We cannot allow the latest provocations of the Kim Jong Un regime to divert us from the root cause of this problem: the atrocious violations of human rights being committed by this Kim regime and abetted by Xi Jinping.

Eighty percent of North Korean escapees carry poison so they can kill themselves if they are arrested in China.  They would rather die than be repatriated to North Korea.     China’s “repatriation policy is a death sentence for North Koreans”.**

Why Should We Care?   The situation for North Korean refugees is worse than ever before.  There is nothing that Kim Jong Un fears more than the PEOPLE of North Korea who are the ones who have educated us about the horrible suffering in the DPRK.  Kim will do everything in his power to prevent their escape and China’s communist government will comply with his wishes despite China’s international treaty obligations.  Just recently, a family of five committed suicide rather than face repatriation to North Korea   In this case, a senior member of the North Korea’s Worker’s Party with his wife, son and two daughters begged the Chinese security forces not to force them back to North Korea.  The World Tribune reported: the Chinese police instead followed an order from Beijing to escort them with heavily armed security guards thousands of miles away to the northeastern province of Liaoning which borders North Korea.  Fearing certain torture and imprisonment and possible execution, the family committed suicide by taking poison.

The defectors have repeatedly told us about the close cooperation between the Chinese and the North Korea security forces.

What the Chinese authorities are doing is inhumane, barbaric and illegal.  It is a violation of international law as China is a signatory to the refugee convention which it signed in September of 1982 (The People’s Republic of China signed the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol on September 24, 1982.)

Consider that the Chinese government refuses to allow the UN High Commissioner for Refugees any access to these refugees but gives free reign to the DPRK’s Ministry of State Security agents to hunt down refugees and to murder those who try to help them.  Even Chinese citizens have been jailed and murdered for helping North Korean refugees.

 Will you take a stand for these men, women and children whose only crime was to try to live?  We will provide you anything you need to take part: a sample letter of petition, posters, videos, prayer points, so you can take part.  If action is already planned in your city, we will connect you with your city coordinator.

Here’s how you can participate – two possible ways.

Be a City Coordinator: If you live in a city with a Chinese consulate, the role of the city coordinator is very simple: deliver a letter of petition on Friday, September 22nd to the Chinese embassy or consulate calling on the PRC to stop repatriating North Korean refugees.  You can plan any additional activity you wish.  For example, here in Washington, D.C. the North Korea Freedom Coalition will also hold a demonstration and a candlelight vigil, while in Seoul, South Korea, the Lawyers for Human Rights and unification of Korea are planning a protest, while in Pretoria, South Africa, Ata Gallous is hosting a conference to raise awareness in South Africa about North Korea’s suffering.

Be a Solidarity City Coordinator: Solidarity city coordinators are in cities with no Chinese consulate but who wish to take action for North Korean refugees.  You could host a film screening, a prayer vigil, collect signatures, host any event to raise awareness and raise funds for organizations that rescue North Korean refugees.  For example, in Ithaca, New York, debuNK is hosting an event to educate students at Cornell about the plight of North Korean refugees, while in Traverse City, Michigan, Sally Jo Messersmith is gathering with friends to pray for North Korea at the Korean War memorial there.

Last year 24 cities worldwide took part in Save North Korean Refugees Day from Pretoria, South Africa to San Francisco, California, from Seoul, South Korea, to Paris, France.  For inspiration, you can see the full report of last year’s Save North Korea Refugees Day on our website at www.nkfreedom.org.  If you are interested in being a part of Save North Korean Refugees Day, please reply to this email.  If you would like to support these efforts websites are listed below.

We need your voice to be heard!

ACTA NON VERBA,

*Proverbs 24: 11

**testimony of North Korean defectors during North Korea Freedom Week 2017

Suzanne Scholte - Seoul Peace Prize Laureate

President, Defense Forum Foundation

Chair, North Korea Freedom Coalition

www.defenseforumfoundation.org |www.nkfreedom.org

Please be in prayer for the plight of the North Korean people who have suffered so much under the brutal dictatorship of the Kim family for many decades. Pray for China to change its attitude to North Korean defectors so that they can be welcomed and helped across the border in China rather than be sent back to almost certain death.

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Pablo leads a small indigenous ministry. He says Syrian refugees are frustrated with Islam, and when we begin to show the love of God in our actions and tell them about God in the Bible, they say they had never heard anything like it. When they start coming to church one of the brothers begins visiting them in their apartment, and explains that, as Christians, they are expressing God's compassion and kindness. The refugees become Christian. Every six months the EU sends 150 refugee families to this ministry for assistance to get resettled. Every month its human and financial resources are stretched. But they do whatever God tells them to do.

Published in Europe
Friday, 28 July 2017 09:19

Prayer needs of Europe

Holiday venues: pray for God to pour out his blessings on all the Christian summer camps for youth and adults during the next few weeks. Pray for protection from terror attacks wherever people gather this season. French politics: may God give grace to President Macron, who secured a majority in the National Assembly last month. He must seize a small window of opportunity for radical economic change, while not falling into the same trap as President Sarkozy, who faced a wave of paralyzing strikes after unveiling his first radical proposals. Pray for Macron to reverse France’s decline through wise management of the National Assembly. Migration crisis: pray for European and African ministers trying to regularise the flow of refugees from Africa to Europe, coupled with a much tougher strategy to deport illegal migrants from Italy and break up smuggling rings. See:

Published in Europe
Friday, 23 June 2017 11:08

North Africa: mass losses at sea

Some 126 refugees drowned in the Mediterranean after Libyan people-smugglers stole their outboard motor, leaving them at the mercy of the waves and other attackers. The dinghy, which left from a beach in Libya on 16 June, was heading toward Italy when it was attacked. The waves soon engulfed the dinghy and it sank. It is believed there were 130 on board, of whom four (two Nigerians and two Sudanese) were rescued by passing fishermen. Most of the passengers were from Sudan. A spokesman for the UN migration agency said the incident was ‘tantamount to murder’. He added, ‘We believe the motor may even have been stolen by the smugglers who launched the dinghy in the first place, or a rival group. Many motors have been stolen in recent times as they are valuable to the smugglers.’

Published in Worldwide

A 34-year-old Christian, Ijaz, who had fled Pakistan for fear of persecution, received news on 26 May that his application for refugee status had been refused. The next day he died at the Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) in Bangkok. Some months earlier he complained of chest pains and was hospitalised, but doctors could not diagnose his problem. At the IDC, he was put in the punishment room because he could not pay his hospital bill. Eventually his local church in Bangkok paid the bill, with help from Barnabas Fund. The IDC doctor refused to allow his pastor to bring him medicine. Around 4,000 Pakistani Christians have fled persecution and made their way to Thailand, only to find that they are treated as criminals there. Immigration police carry out arbitrary mass arrests, even raiding worship services, searching for people without valid visas. Detainees are held in such harsh and horrifically overcrowded conditions that some have chosen to go back to Pakistan and face persecution. One source said that this desperate decision is often made because they are not receiving treatment for life-threatening medical conditions. ‘It is a 21st century concentration camp, without the gas chambers’, he said.

Published in Worldwide
Friday, 09 June 2017 12:10

Israel: plight of Eritrean refugees

A Christian agency in Israel said, ‘We see a great deal of fear among vulnerable members of our Eritrean community,’ after a new law, known as the Deposit Law, was implemented by the government. It deducts 20% from the earnings of African asylum-seekers, and their employers must also make monthly payments equivalent to 16% of the person’s salary. This law impacts the 40,000 Eritreans (mainly Christians) who fled to Israel hoping to find freedom and security in a country where they could worship without fear. The funds - from employee and employer - will be set aside by the Israeli government and released to the individual asylum-seeker when they agree to leave the country permanently. No Eritreans wish to return to the brutal communist regime which hounds Christians, imprisoning them for years in atrocious conditions just for meeting together to pray. Eritreans trying to go to Uganda or Rwanda have sometimes ended in the hands of human traffickers or been killed by IS.

Published in Worldwide