The Rohingya people are a stateless minority from Myanmar who fled ethnic violence. Many of them ended up in Bangladesh. While the repatriation process was postponed, most have no desire to return to Myanmar.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

The Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh is now the largest in the world with over one million people. But it is not in a great spot.

Gary Edmonds with Food for the Hungry explains, “They have…created these what are called ‘spontaneous settlements’. In other words, they find some open land [and] they find some places where they try to create a little bit of shelter, get some food, water, [and] sanitation conditions. But it so happens that where they have settled is also in a highly vulnerable floodplain.”

The monsoon rain in the refugee camp brings the dangers of collapsing buildings and tents, floods, landslides, and waterborne diseases. Bangladesh’s monsoon season typically lasts from June to October. The first weekend of monsoon season in early June saw 15 inches of rain and winds roaring in at 43 miles per hour.

“With the rains as well as these very, very concentrated living environments, you’ve got a situation where malaria, cholera, diphtheria — waterborne illnesses — are likely to be spread, and spread rapidly.”

Food for the Hungry is trying to get ahead of the problem in the Rohingya refugee camp, along with fellow ministry partners.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“We have been a part with Medical Teams International of building health clinics…and then educating the people and training healthcare workers to allow them to navigate this kind of a season. [The problem is] you just can’t get to the health clinics right now. Roads are literally washed out. There is no way of transport.”

Part of the solution is to train local Rohingya people in disease prevention and sanitation so they can teach others in the camps. Footbridges will also hopefully be built over flooded roads and gullies so people can still get across.

Tangible aid is also still needed. “We try to equip them as best we can with boots and rain slickers and garments and so forth…. The second side of it is to get clean water and to get food to these people. That’s what Food for the Hungry is working at as well right now.”

As Edmonds puts it, “A hard place has simply just become harder for us to work and operate in. But nevertheless, it doesn’t inhibit us in a sense and it doesn’t create a situation where we’re simply just trying to wait it out.”

As believers, there are multiple things we can do to respond to the Rohingya crisis. But one thing we can’t do as a Church is nothing.

Zohrab is one of thousands of Rohingya mothers who fled Bangladesh and barely survived with her baby, Noor. (Photo, caption courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“This is the kind of thing that breaks God’s heart as a father who has created these people in His image. Therefore, might it break our heart in such a way that it will lead us to respond, and respond appropriately [at] this time in history. I think this is one of the crucial ways that we can be witnesses to the love and the grace of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ.”

Edmonds suggests, “First of all, search, go on the web, get yourself educated. Many, many people are not educated about the Rohingya people and the crisis and all that is happening. This is viewed as likely one of the biggest humanitarian emergencies of history — more than one million people who are stateless people.”

Additionally, Father’s Day was earlier this week. With this focus recently on our minds, Edmonds says we can pray that the Rohingya people would come to know their Heavenly Father.

“God the Father has actually fashioned, created these people. They are handmade people by the Father of Heaven. He loves them,…He knows them by name, He knows their gifts and their skills and their abilities. So pray that God would intervene.

“Then lastly, if you are inclined, if you are looking at this, we would love for people to give. This is one of those kinds of crisis areas. We do get some grants from larger groups, UN bodies, and so forth, but we need to constantly supplement that for our staff. Private donations, people who give, churches who give are the instrumental way for us to actually respond.”

Click here to give to FH’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis fund!

(Header photo courtesy of Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr: https://goo.gl/daSWrS)

Food for the Hungry’s Gary Edmonds explains, “[The Rohingya] are a stateless people and the Myanmar government has planted landmines on the border basically saying, ‘We don’t want you back.’ But at the same time, they’re not really fully engaged or fully welcomed into Bangladesh.”

(Photo courtesy of Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr: https://goo.gl/daSWrS)

Their ministry has been serving in Bangladesh since 1971, and they’ve been working with Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar area since the crisis started back in October.

Currently, Edmonds says the biggest issue facing the Rohingya in refugee camps is disease and lack of sanitation. “The situation, it’s dire. There have been floods. There’s muck and there are situations where the water is not healthy and pure. People right now are facing massive health issues. It can be health issues related to cholera, it can be simply just the disease of having to walk through feces, no latrines, no sanitation systems.”

According to a report Sunday from the UN Children’s Fund, there are 1,138 suspected cases of diphtheria in the Rohingya refugee camps and 19 resulting deaths. Children are the most vulnerable – 76% of the diphtheria cases were in kids 14 and under.

That’s why FH has partnered with Medical Teams International. They set up health clinics in the Rohingya refugee camps and even began training local Rohingya to lead sanitation initiatives.

“We believe that social credibility is of the essence. You know, here’s a traumatized people, here’s a people who have been hurt and harmed by conflict, who have fled their own state, their own nation. They’re uncertain what the future is going to hold. So we try to mobilize local people of the actual refugee community.”

Edmonds tells of one young Rohingya man who was formerly an English teacher. “We were looking to raise up and train local health people who could go in and work with family units. He came and he said in essence, ‘I’m here to serve my people; I’m here to serve my neighbors.’

“So because he had English and we were able to train him, we trained him on how to go in and use water and salt systems to prevent diarrhea. We talked about how to do basic health checkups with the folks and begin to treat them for whatever diseases were there. He began to train them in…how to use the latrine systems as well, the sanitation, so as not to contract cholera in that kind of an environment. And he basically said, ‘You’ve helped me to love my own people.’”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Now is a critical time to make a difference. Click here to give to FH’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis Fund!

In the midst of service, they are acting as God’s agents of mercy to the oppressed Rohingya people.

“That’s what we’re trying to do. We make a statement that our purpose is, together, we follow God’s call responding to human suffering,” says Edmonds.

“We are a part of a Gospel movement. We are part of a movement, I believe, of love, of mercy, of grace. This is the very essence of this kind of a season, that God is leading a movement of love, of mercy, of grace into a broken world and we have been given the privilege to push back the darkness, to respond to human suffering. So join the movement!”

(Header photo: Zohrab is one of thousands of Rohingya mothers who fled Bangladesh and barely survived with her baby, Noor. [Photo, caption courtesy of Food for the Hungry])

Tom Lothamer with Life Matters Worldwide says, specifically, the prayer warriors with 40 Days for Life are “praying for those going in for their [abortion] services, praying for the staff, and especially for the doctors who are performing abortions and asking God to change their minds about this…and choosing life. But also [they are] asking God to rid our communities of abortion. They do that with a constant vigil, 24-7 prayer for 40 days.”

(Photo courtesy of John Pisciotta via Flickr under Creative Commons License)

The 40 Days for Life movement began in 2007 and they’ve seen God do amazing things through their prayers and presence. According to their website, over 13,600 lives have been saved from abortion, 156 abortion workers have quit, and 90 abortion clinics have closed since the movement began.

The heart of this campaign is to peacefully and lovingly bring together the Body of Christ in prayer for God to move society from a culture of death to a culture of life and bring an end to abortion.

Occasionally, 40 Days for Life’s peaceful vigils are met with opposition. “Sometimes people go by and they’re not very happy with the prayer warriors so they’ll honk their horns or they’ll say something maybe nasty,” says Lothamer. “This year too in Grand Rapids we’ve had the group Antifa — which basically stands for anti-fascists, it’s kind of a radical political group — and they just come and they don’t necessarily do anything to the people who are praying, but they’re just there with their…masks in all black and they’re just there to intimidate and make them feel uncomfortable.

“But the people that are praying, we have the Holy Spirit of God who is giving us the power to not notice that so much but to continue their prayers.”

These prayer warriors are also available to speak with people outside of the clinics, and it’s from these encouraging conversations that hearts are encouraged towards life.

“A number of times, one of the prayer warriors will have a chance to actually connect with a client going in [the abortion clinic] and be able to talk to them and they’ll try to encourage them saying there are other options. In fact, if you wish, we can take you over to the local pregnancy center and you can get an ultrasound and you can get counseling for yourself. There’s a number of times people will take them up on that. Other times, they’ll go in and then they’ll come back out and take them up on that and they’ll take the materials they’re offering them.”

Prayer vigil with 40 Days for Life. (Photo courtesy of John Pisciotta via Flickr under Creative Commons License)

This fall’s campaign is taking place in 375 cities across 24 different countries. If you’d like to join a 40 Days for Life campaign near you, click here!

But that’s not all you can do. Lothamer adds, “You can actually get on the 40 Days for Life website and sign up to receive the daily news from around the world and then at the end, they have a Scripture and a devotional and prayer.” You can use these resources to fuel your prayers

Finally, this coming Sunday, November 5th is the last day of 40 Days for Life. Your church can commit to praying on Sunday for an end to abortion both in your community and around the world.

Find more pro-life resources and materials from Life Matters Worldwide’s website!

As of yesterday, over 70 people have died after breathing in poisonous chemicals that caused vomiting, foaming at the mouth, writhing, and choking.

Syrian man carries the body of a bombing victim after an attack in 2014. (Photo courtesy of Freedom House / AFP PHOTO / AMC /ZEIN AL-RIFAI via Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. https://goo.gl/EA89bJ)

Todd Nettleton with The Voice of the Martyrs USA explains, “In this case, many of the victims were children. There were attacks on the clinics where the wounded were being treated — missile attacks. So, it was really a heinous attack. And hopefully the world will pay attention, and the world will try to step in and do something to help the Syrian people.”

It’s being called one of the worst chemical attacks in the Syrian civil war.

Syrian and Russian leaders deny any involvement in the chemical bombings, but Western authorities are skeptical. Nettleton says, “Supposedly, Syria had turned over all of their chemical weapon stockpiles to international supervision so that they couldn’t be used in an attack like this.” Some countries within the United Nations are demanding action and increased sanctions against Assad, but Russia and China have vetoed similar measures in the past.

Within the motley of despair, parents saying goodbye to their dead children, homes crumbling into rubble, lives being devastated… as Christians, we ask, does the Gospel have something to say even in moments like this?

Nettleton reflects, “It is a hard question to answer in some senses because the first need is for peace. There is a need for treating the wounded and bringing comfort to those who have lost loved ones.

The Aleppo citadel before Syria’s civil war. (Photo courtesy of Varun Shiv Kapur via Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License: https://goo.gl/QXlFrO)

“But I think, at the bottom line, the Gospel brings hope. The thought of eternity with Christ means even if I am killed on this earth, I have the hope of eternity. I have hope for a future with Jesus. And, sometimes in desperate situations, that really is all you have is the hope that there can be eternity in heaven.”

He says to spur hope in Syria of eternity with God, we need to be getting the Gospel there. Voice of the Martyrs is providing Bibles in Syria and supporting local Christians who have decided to stay in their country so they can share the Good News.

“Pray for God’s protection over them, pray for opportunities to be a witness and to share hope in what looks like a very hopeless situation.”

Pray for Syrians, that God would grant them peace and comfort, and that they would know their Savior who grieves with them.

"We are currently in about 38 villages," he explains. They were  "primarily in Lempira and Santa Barbara,
working with the village leaders around what the needs are for those villages
and bringing them solutions like the Hydraid water filter. But we also built
Lorena stoves, latrines, as well as setting up village
pharmacies."

Many poverty-stricken villages need help with health and
wellness information, know-how, supplies, and technical needs. 

They're often dealing with malnutrition, extreme
circumstances, poverty and other problems that feed into a cycle of existing
problems. 

International Aid knows that more than physical things are required to transform mindsets, values, and behaviors that
affect health and wellbeing. However, by meeting the physical needs, the obstacles
are removed, and those who interact with the teams see a different motivator.

Contact with the Gospel comes through the mission teams that
help and from the church connections in the region. IA is the catalyst to
hope. "Many of the people in
the villages are believers that what we are bringing them reaffirms their faith
that IA is there for them, but more importantly, that Jesus is there for them. We're just doing for them what Jesus does every day for them."

Pray that this program continues to grow even as the church
gets stronger. You can help. Click here
for details.

What makes this different, he notes, is local ownership of
the project. "Once they've built the plan, we're able to identify those
things that we can help them with, and those they can do themselves. We
actually have employees that move into those communities for an extended period
of time so they can provide those services. It really is an excellent
opportunity for us to demonstrate who we are in Christ, to provide service and
then, hopefully, to have the opportunity to share our faith, as well."  

The project is already underway.  I-A's framework takes into account the need
for more than supplies and healthcare services . 
Their team educates to transform mindsets, values, and behaviors that
affect health.

They involve communities in learning about the causes of
illness. They also demonstrate how safer water supplies reduce diarrhea; show
local healers ways to reduce infection during and after childbirth.

Their goal: to establish self-sustaining health
programs.  Teams work to create health
models that could be replicated in similar cultures and geographic regions.

Aside from the normal healthcare services and funding needs,
they've paved the way for other believers to get involved through their Befriend-A-Village
Special Projects. Through those, donors partner
International Aid staff and volunteers with village residents to improve
conditions affect health and wellbeing. Such projects can improve air quality,
provide safe water, operate Village Pharmacies, and train and supply
traditional birth attendants with sanitary birthing kits and training.

Fish emphasizes that their approach honors the capabilities
of the people and the cultures they serve. 
It also empowers the believers to minister as they learn how to shape
health programming. "Pray, ultimately, that we would have the chance to
demonstrate who we are in Christ, and that we'll have the opportunity to
actually articulate a Gospel message in these communities that are
predominantly Muslim."