Caring for Children4/19/2022 After Trauma: Children's Disaster Services & the local churchAny tragic event - war, famine, natural disaster, community violence - seems to tear at us a little bit more when it affects a child. Our church nursery and Bible school walls are adorned with drawings and scripted verses: Let the little children come to me … for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. (Matthew 19:14) We are tender-hearted for society’s youngest members.
Since 1980 Children’s Disaster Services (CDS), a program of Brethren Disaster Ministries, has been meeting the needs of children by setting up child care spaces in shelters and disaster assistance centers across the nation. Specially trained to respond to traumatized children, volunteers provide a calm, safe and reassuring presence in the midst of the chaos created by tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural or human-caused disasters. Holy Week Prayers4/10/2022  From today until next Sunday, we hold to church tradition, marking this holiest of weeks with our reflection, worship, rituals, and song. Week of Compassion joins you in prayer, each day, that we might find renewed meaning and a truly Holy Week.
April 10 - Palm Sunday Humble One, you arrive today, amid cries of hosanna, with nothing fancier than donkeys, cloaks, and branches to mark your way. We join you on the path, praying for the meaning in this week, and for your strong, steady pace to rule our hearts. April 11 - Lasting God, we want to move from celebration to celebration, but you call us to deeper faithfulness - to sit among the discomfort and concern, to withstand the aching passion of this week, to wait with hope for the promise to come. April 12 - Holy One, embrace us in this moment. Reveal to us, and through us, your divine intent: wide welcome, generous compassion, deep relationship. Life renewed, mercy overflowing, promise revealed. May we be what you see in us. April 13 - Gracious Creator, we near the day of promise, that moment of newness and hope. It is slow going to get there, it is close-but-not-yet. We’ve come this far by faith, and so we remain dedicated to the work at hand - remembering, confessing, grieving, waiting. April 14 - Maundy Thursday Host, at your table, Lord, all who come and go. We come to remember, alongside everyone as lost as we are, everyone as arrogant as we can sometimes be. We go back into a challenging world, somehow different than when we came. Here, at your table, Lord, all enter in. April 15 - Good Friday Crucified Christ, your family, your friends, are too acquainted with grief. We know it well, too - global pandemic, unholy wars, racial injustice, climate change, unhealthy attachments. We pray forgiveness. We sit, we flail, we pray, we wail - at the foot of the cross, we lay every burden down, that you might know how desperate we are to draw near to you. April 16 - Holy Saturday Sacred Stillness, speak into our hearts - something only we will hear, something that is just for us to hold and know as our own. As we sit in this in-between - no longer at the cross, not yet to the empty tomb - we wait in this shadowed moment for your light to break forth. April 17 - Easter Sunday Risen Lord, revive us again! Our community’s pains cry out, and our compassion calls in response: Arise, shine, for Light has come! Our world needs to know, to see, to feel, to believe: Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen, in deed! Behind the Scenes4/5/2022  Between winter’s severe weather, the Special Offering in February, and the crisis continuing to unfold in Ukraine, you have heard a lot from and about Week of Compassion. We’re grateful for every chance to stay connected - through these emails, at our website, in social media, and with your congregations.
Sometimes we talk about things as if everyone knows what we mean. From time to time, alongside stories of Week of Compassion working with partners to alleviate suffering throughout the world, we want to tell you a little about the ‘behind the scenes’ commitments that make that ministry happen. Maria's story3/31/2022
A Letter on Ukraine3/24/2022  Grace and peace, Disciples. Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, and with our deepest gratitude for each of you and for this ministry.
In the first days after the February 24 start of the Russian attacks on Ukraine, the humanitarian response, led especially by faith-focused communities, was immediate and significant. Week of Compassion has been in constant contact with our ecumenical partners at home and around the world. Willing to Respond3/22/2022  We are excited to be part of the launch of a new tool for networking congregations for disaster preparedness and response: Willing to Respond!
As a registry of willing congregations and a library of vetted resources, this tool will help us connect with you and introduce you to other congregations and organizations in your area. It also provides your congregation with training, tips, and tools to reduce your risk and be ready to help your neighbors when disaster strikes. partnering to respond in Ukraine3/15/2022  For us, like for many others, every day Ukraine is on our hearts.
So begins a letter from Pieter and Nora Kalkan, missionaries to the Czech Republic, writing to their church family in the (American Baptist) International Ministries. Through IM, and the European Baptist Federation, Week of Compassion is on the ground in Ukraine and surrounding nations, responding to the emergent needs of those fleeing the country, and those who remain internally displaced by the war. As stories of devastation and terror fill the international news, stories of compassion, generosity, and life-giving help flow in from our ecumenical partners as well. |
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