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"Everyone
neath their vine and fig tree" Old Testament prophets had a difficult job. Some of the messages they brought to the people were of condemnation and destruction. The messages warned of the consequences of sin. They made a strong connection between worship of God and social justice. They also delivered messages of divine forgiveness and hope. While these messages were spoken in the context of the lives of the people of Israel and Judah they point us to the God that we continue to worship and serve today. One of the pieces that I want to pick out is what the prophet Micah describes when there is a righting of relationships and social justice. In chapter four of Micah, the prophet creates a word picture of people gathering together from many nations and learning the ways of God. As a result swords are beaten into plowshares and there is a ceasing of war and then- "...they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid." This picture of security is one we all like to identify with. It is a place of safety where needs are met. For many of us this is our home. It is considered a right to have a safe place, provisions, and protection from violence. Today in our world the number of people displaced from their homes is staggering. While many of us enjoy warm shelter, clean water, and food these are not a daily assumption for a large part of our global village. While some of this displacement happens as a result of natural disasters, more is brought about because of war, declared or undeclared. Families are many time forced from their homes because of the violence of one group seeking control and power. Economic realities are another contributing element. Joblessness, or a job with wages too low to provide a secure life, contributes to homelessness. While the causes of displacement are many, the consequences are similar; poverty, hunger, sickness, and death. Included here are glimpses of the realities of the displaced. ~LHN [top] Without a home in the
global village Amid this ongoing carnage, Colombia's indigenous population and its poorest regions have paid a particularly high price. The small ethnic groups face not only death and displacement, but also the permanent loss of their way of life and centuries-old cultures. In the semi-abandoned villages of Putumayo in the south, one indigenous leader worried: "Unfortunately for us, our lands are of great strategic importance to the armed groups. They have killed many members of our communities. They try to recruit our youth by persuasion or force. Many families have become displaced." The territory of the Cofan ethnic group in the border area with neighboring Ecuador is also under threat. But "the land is the most important thing of all," according to one Cofan official. "If we lose our territory, we disappear as a culture, as a community. We lose our children, we lose everything. We become poor. We become sad. We remain only as drifters. We are here today and tomorrow we disappear." From Israel: A section from a letter written to Prime Minister Sharon, signed by 300 rabbi and submitted to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC on January 12, 2004, asking Sharon to stop the practice of home demolitions. "Home demolitions constitute an especially disturbing human rights issue. A sense of home is an essential part of our humanity; homelessness has always been considered a human tragedy. Jews, because of our own history, are especially conscious of the issue of home, and Zionism can be said to be the movement to find a home for a people so often deprived of our homes. The destruction of a home can only be experienced as a violation by its inhabitants. Something fundamental to one's identity has been removed. To be deprived of one's home is to be naked in the world. More, it can mean that one is unable to locate oneself in the world, to feel that one has a place. Without a home, wherever one walks in the world, a sense of tragedy and pain, of emptiness and shame accompanies you. Any society must proceed with absolute caution before it destroys a home. That is a basic claim of justice." From the West Bank: From the International Solidarity Movement
a report on Monday, January 12, 2004. From Iraq: Information from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT),
Amnesty International and MCC. In the words of one Iraqi man "What happened is that Iraqis have been killed from inside." The injustices of the current US military actions on top of the years of sanction have created a very difficult life for the Iraqi people. CPT (and others) is concerned with the suffering of the Iraqi people, and also with the fact that the anger and frustration they experience only fuels the potential for resistance attacks that endanger both Iraqi civilians and Coalition soldiers. From Uganda: From the MCC web site and an article from MCCer Dave
Klassen The U.N. estimates that there are perhaps 1.2 million internally displaced
people in Uganda and that 80 percent of those are living in camps. An
estimated 13,000 people from the countryside commute to sleep each evening
within the city limits of Gulu, where they are less likely to suffer rebel
attacks; another 7,000 do the same in Kitgum; and thousands are coming
into Saroti as well. During June of 2003 the Acholi Religious Leaders
spent several nights in the cold with the estimated 1,200 children who
have become night commuters in Gulu town and Lacor Hospital. Retired Anglican
bishop of Kitgum, Baker Ochola, made a most passionate plea showing the
pain of the parents whose children have been abducted. "We have come
here for four nights to show the whole world that there is a very big
problem in Northern Uganda. Why is the international community turning
a blind eye on us? We have no homesteads in Acholi now, we are all displaced,
why is the world keeping quiet?" [top]
2. MCC web site; Iraq page: More to learn, More to do, read words in first person voices of Iraqi people. 3. Goshen Interfaith Hospitality Network, 105 S. 3rd St., Goshen, IN 46528, phone- (574) 534-2300 or your local agency concerned with those who are homeless 4. Common Place magazine, January 2000, A heart for Uganda's street kids, pp10-15. 5. MCC Video- Child's View Series, Uganda; Innocent Patrick and his friends, 9 minutes 6. In Exile; a simulation that makes the experience of the refugee real
for high school age youth. For information call office. [top]
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© 2003 Mennonite Central Committee |