Justice League – Fightin’ Friday

February 12, 2010

February Focus on Discrimination

ALL PEOPLE ARE EQUAL
Refugees are people seeking safety and freedom from persecution. They are seeking the ability to live free from fear. A refugee is a person who, “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” (1951 Convention on Refugees)

In 2009 the estimated number of refugees of concern to UNHCR, (UN Refugee Agency) stood at 10.5 million refugees.

KAVITHA’S STORY
Sri Lanka, January 6– Kavitha Ramani’s* smile can light up a room but it cannot hide her exhaustion and physical suffering after years of uncertainty, flight and hardship in north-eastern Sri Lanka. The 29-year-old has the hands and gait of an old woman while her posture is stooped.

Today, she is finally back home with her parents and two children in eastern Sri Lanka’s Batticaloa district after their recent release from a camp for people repeatedly displaced in the last months of Sri Lanka’s long civil war, which ended with government victory over the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) last May. More than 155,000 people have left the government-run camps in the north and east as part of the return process, while almost 110,000 remain.

Some happiness has come back into Ramani’s life, but she and her family still face major challenges in rebuilding their lives. Moreover, Ramani’s husband remains in detention as a suspected LTTE member while her daughter has serious health problems and needs specialist treatment.

Her personal struggle is not over. She worries about her husband and her daughter and about making money to make ends meet without a regular income. “I really wonder what the future holds for me and my family” (Source: UNHCR)

THINK ABOUT IT
Get some friends together and take some time to talk about refugees. Maybe you want to lead this group, get online and start a conversation about refugees. Do your friends know what a refugee is?

PRAYER ACTION
This prayer needs you to get active as a sign of how refugees need to see real breakthrough in their tough situations. When there are barriers put up they need the walls to come down so they can access a permanent home, possibly in a new country. They need protection. They need their burdens lifted. They need community.

1. Shelter & Protection: Get a bunch of friends together or your youth group and build/set up a tent. With the tent symbolizing ‘shelter’, pray this prayer together in the tent. Have one person shout the leader part while the rest of the group shouts the response. Pray for shelter and protection for refugees.

   Leader: God’s people are a people of mercy!
   Response: Hear the word of God: “God defends the cause of the orphan and widow, and loves the foreigner, giving to each food and clothes. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” Deuteronomy 24:19-22.

2. Breakthrough Barriers: Build a tower of rocks, bricks, phone books, whatever you can build a tower out of. At this prayer station focus on how refugees need the walls and barriers to come down so they can access a permanent home. Shout the call and response scripture and pray for God provision for refugees, that countries would be moved to open up boarders to refugees, hear their claims quickly, and take good care of all in need.

   Leader: Our God is a God of justice!
   Response: Hear the word of God: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8

3. Community & Hope: Share a community meal (pizza, spaghetti…) making sure it is an “everybody invited” meal. Create an information wall about refugees. Have cards that you hand out with the scripture from Matthew and pray together. Create a hope wall where people get a chance to write their prayers and hope for refugees.

Our God is a God who loves the stranger!

Hear the words of Jesus:

Come you who are blessed by God; take your inheritance… For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes, and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these sisters and brothers of mine, you did for me. Matthew 25:34-36, 40

MORE INFO
See February’s full justice post with all the details here

Drop by next Friday for another post with actions you can take & prayer suggestions

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