Jack Amick: Food and Migration Mission

Today’s post is by Rev. Jack Amick. Rev. Amick is Director of Global Migration at UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief. It is part of a series of reflections by multiple authors on the connections between food and mission.

When I think of the theological significance of food, I think of the words of Isaiah 55, in which God says, through the prophet Isaiah, “All of you who are thirsty, come to the water! Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat! Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk!”  

Ironically, this declaration of God’s abundant provision for all people comes to us at a time when we have learned that a bread line in Ukraine was recently bombed, in a place that used to be known as a breadbasket, not only for the region but, through the World Food Program, as a source of food for places like Afghanistan. In Ukraine, people are starting to starve; In Afghanistan, people have been starving for some time already.  

Conflict, famine, and refugee movements are interrelated. When human beings inflict these scourges on one another, there is no other way to describe it but pure evil.

During my years at UMCOR when I have directed global migration programing, I have observed some of the world’s largest refugee movements since World War II: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and many others. Every time people flee in fear, it breaks my heart.

But I want you to know that every time my heart is broken, it is also healed, by the generosity of the United Methodist Church, who every time the world falls apart, reaches out through UMCOR to do our part in patching things up. UMCOR can’t do it all, but we can make a difference. And, yes, sometimes it feels like building bridges by throwing stones in the ocean, but we, on behalf of, and in partnership with, the United Methodist Church, build those bridges every time.

Many of UMCOR’s programs with migrants involve humanitarian assistance interventions, including the provision of food. Sometimes that is packed meals that people can take with them on the next leg of their journey. Sometimes it is food that reminds them of home. Sometimes it is food they cook themselves.

The basic concepts of providing food for migrants and refugees are simple: Food should look and taste like the food with which people are familiar. There should be enough of it such that the recipient doesn’t have to look again for food in a few days. It should be nutritionally balanced. And, in the best scenario, people should be able to purchase the food and cook it themselves, because both of those actions are generally closer to “normal” than someone giving food or cooking for you. Buying locally also spurs on the local economy. The worst approach to food in mission with migrants and refugees is to import meal packets that are foreign in how they look, taste, and are cooked.

There are several positive examples of food-related best practices from United Methodist migrant and refugee mission work. In some of the church-run shelters along the border, for instance, the guests (asylum seekers) are welcome to gather together in the kitchen and cook so that they can not only have food with the taste and spices with which they are familiar, but they can also feel empowered by cooking for their family.   

Another interesting project was part of UMCOR’s Mustard Seed Migration Grant program. French UMC in Detroit is a church pastored by missionaries from the DRC and consisting of recently arrived French-speaking refugees. The grant UMCOR gave them allowed French UMC to be able to afford to prepare some meals with familiar food for recently arrived refugees that were living in a group housing facility. Welcoming the stranger meant cooking familiar food for them.  

Just recently, we have had some inspiring conversations with United Methodist leaders in Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia, where the church is opening its doors to people on the move. Through their courage, creativity, and compassion, the church is providing food to Ukrainian refugees, along with shelter, clothing, transportation, and other assistance. One superintendent described this as “work they had never done before, but which they had no choice but to do.” Another described how they were finding ways to take special care of the children. Still another told of how they were working closely to assist African students fleeing Ukraine.

UMCOR has supported each of these entities with emergency grants and is already exploring with local leaders how we can best provide future support. What gives me hope is that the generosity of those on the ground is matched by the generosity of donors, halfway around the world. UMCOR, in partnership with various UMC entities around the globe, is connecting in compassion to eliminate suffering even while our hearts break.

Whether work with migrants and refugees is routine or something “we have never done before but have no choice to do,” sharing food that is culturally appropriate, plentiful, healthy, and when possible, prepared by migrants themselves helps heal the hearts of all involved.

Recommended Readings: Ukraine news and resources

As the war in Ukraine continues, stories of (United) Methodist help amidst the war, Ukrainian refugees who have been taken in by Methodists, and spiritual and informational resources about Ukraine are proliferating. Because of the proximity of German-speaking United Methodists to Ukraine, some of these resources are in German. No attempt has been made to translate the resources indicated; online translators can generally provide a reasonable approximation.

Global Ministries released an article on March 4th with an overview of how United Methodists throughout Europe were engaging in support for Ukrainians. It also includes a nice background survey of Methodism in Ukraine. The German United Methodist news service published an article on March 9th providing a further roundup of news snippets of United Methodists helping. Swiss United Methodists published an article on March 11th with yet more news snippets of United Methodist responses.

Swiss United Methodist news has also shared two dramatic personal stories of Ukrainian refugees who have been taken in by United Methodists: One is about a group of orphans from Kyiv who were nearly redirected by a dishonest transportation company before arriving safely at a Methodist welcoming center in Sibiu, Romania. One is about a woman from Kharkiv who gave birth while fleeing Ukraine before safely arriving in Warsaw and being cared for by United Methodists there. The Methodist Church in Britain also released a podcast interview of two United Methodists from Ukraine about their experiences fleeing from the invasion.

Several groups have put together helpful resource pages with prayers, news, and other material related to the war in Ukraine. The Swiss United Methodist Church, which has been a major source for news related to the war and the associated refugee crisis has put together this resource page. There are also resource pages from The United Methodist Church and the Methodist Church in Britain. Finally, the European Methodist Council has shared this moving prayer from UMC Eurasia Bishop Eduard Khegay.

Recommended Reading: The UMC in Ghana

Recently, E. Julu Swen reported for UMNS on the Buduburam United Methodist Church in Buduburam, Ghana. The Buduburam UMC was formed by Liberian refugees who fled to Ghana during the Liberian Civil War. It is the only United Methodist congregation in Ghana.

The Buduburam UMC has always existed in a unique and liminal ecclesial status. It is neither fully part of the UMC in Liberia, its parent organization, nor has it integrated into the autonomous Methodist Church of Ghana, the main Methodist denomination in the country.

As Swen reports, the church is currently facing questions about its future, as most Liberians have returned from Ghana to their home countries after the conclusion of the civil war, leaving the church to struggle.

Yet in those questions about this congregation's future lie larger questions about the relationships between denominations, nations, and people groups that extend far beyond this one congregation. What is the value of a specifically United Methodist presence vs. other Methodist/Wesleyan bodies? How can and should denominations provide for the spiritual care of refugees and other migrants? What are the roles of host denominations and home denominations? What is the role of migrants themselves in shaping their denominational structures?

The Buduburam UMC makes a nice case study to highlight these questions (and more), in part because of its migratory origins, its clear focus on that migratory group, its relationships with both home and host denominations, and its well-documented history.

New Mission Area: Climate Refugees

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Two weeks ago, I raised the question of what features of the world and its various contexts in the 21st century might constitute new areas of mission, in the same way that features of the world 50, 100, or 150 years ago led to areas of mission work that we now consider central: education, poverty relief, healthcare, etc.

This week, I suggest a second new area of mission work: climate refugees.

Climate refugees, or environmental migrants, are people who move because their place of residence becomes uninhabitable because of changing climatic conditions. The nature of those changing climatic conditions vary based the locale, from disastrous storms to sinking underwater to thawing permafrost to desertification. While these changes affect countries in different and unequal ways, climate change refugees may come from all over the world, including Western countries such as the United States. Experts warn that such climate changes could generate tens of millions of refugees, creating the "world's biggest refugee crisis." Yet this category of refugee is only just beginning to receive attention.

As the number and perceived significance of climate refugees as a category of displaced people grows, climate change refugees will present a potential new area of mission for Christians.  Of course, this issue is far beyond what Christians can tackle alone, but it should be an issue with which Christians engage, in partnership with others.

In many ways, Christian mission with climate change refugees will be a continuation of previous areas of Christian mission. Christians have been significantly involved in mission with refugees for the last century. Disaster relief and recover, which is related to mission with climate change refugees displaced by catastrophic storms or famine, has been an important area of mission work, especially for The United Methodist Church, over the past fifty years. Mission with migrants is getting increasing attention, and climate change refugees are a form of migrant.

Yet there are reasons why it may behoove the church to think of mission with climate change refugees as being something different that mission with other refugees. Refugees are typically displaced by some catastrophic event - war, a disaster, famine, etc. Some climate change refugees do fall into this category.

Yet for other climate change refugees, becoming a refugee is more akin to how becoming a migrant works. These climate change refugees recognize that the place in which they are living is untenable and decide to move, but there is no single precipitating event that leads to a wave of people making that decision at the same time. The move is necessary, but not forced.

For climate change refugees of either kind - catastrophic or gradual - becoming a refugee because of climate change also has this unique feature: there is no possibility of going home. Many refugees do not want to or are not able to go home because of political and economic conditions in their homeland. But for climate change refugees, home ceases to exist. It is obliterated because of changing climatic conditions.

Here may be a unique opportunity for Christian mission with climate change refugees. What spiritual and psychological resources can Christians, as people who "have no abiding home" and whose message is about new life after death and departure from the old, bring to mission with climate change refugees? How can we not only help care for their physical needs in the process of relocating but also help them make sense of and find hope within this transition where there is no going back?

Mission with climate change refugees with thus be both a continuation of existing areas of mission and a new area of mission in its own right. But we can expect that recognition of this problem and of the church's need to respond will increase as the number of climate change refugees does.

Benjamin L. Hartley: Opening Up the Church so Wide…

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hartley, Associate Professor of Christian Mission at George Fox University. The post originally appeared on the author's personal blog, Mission and Methodism, in slightly modified form.

I have been thinking and writing about refugees quite a bit recently. There’s ample reason for it; today, seventy million people in our world have been forced from their homes as refugees or internally displaced persons.[1]

November 11, 2018 will mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I. The end of that war brought peace to some, but the refugee crisis it spawned and the ensuing famine in Russia that affected millions made life a nightmare for years after the trench warfare ceased. I wrote an article about this that came out in the International Bulletin of Mission Research this month.[2] Specifically, I wrote about the European Student Relief – the first aid organization to be truly international and ecumenical. It was organized by Christian students around the world to come to the aid of refugee students.

Our refugee crisis today was again brought to my attention a couple of months ago at the Oxford Institute for Methodist Theological Studies with a sermon given by Rev. Peter Storey, a Methodist pastor from South Africa. I met him several days earlier - spotting his name tag as I trickled into a lecture hall with 150 other attendees for the conference’s first plenary lecture. I was surprised to see him. He is not the young man that he was when he bravely fought against the apartheid regime for decades beginning in the 1960s.

As part of his resistance to that regime he would sometimes hold a sign that read, "All who pass by remember with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of the city, and who were forced by law to leave their homes because of the colour of their skins. Father forgive us."

This so-called “Plaque of Shame” was erected on the outside wall of the local Methodist church in District 6 as well. I’m told it is still there. In his sermon that Sunday, Rev. Storey also described another time in the history of that church – long after he had departed as its pastor – when the building provided a place of refuge for people fleeing the ruthless regime of Robert Mugabe in the neighboring state of Zimbabwe.

On the last day of the Oxford Institute, Peter preached on the story of four friends who dug a hole in the roof of a home where Jesus was teaching and asked (demanded?) that Jesus heal their paralyzed friend. The church, he said, has to be broken in order to actually be the church. By serving refugees from Zimbabwe, the church he loved – including the building itself – was literally broken down from the stress of housing dozens of people who lived, cooked, and slept in the sanctuary.

I am reminded of how rarely I have seen this kind of ministry happen in the churches that I have attended and served in for the past several decades. To be clear, I have been a part of churches – urban ones especially – that did prioritize ministry to their neighbors over keeping the church building in shape. I am grateful for their witness, but I have not seen this enough.

When Rev. Storey finished preaching I felt compelled to thank him for his sermon. It had moved me to tears. But I knew that kind words and a handshake wouldn’t be enough. I wanted to hug this man – to feel the aging sinews in his back muscles that had fought against oppression. Peter Storey reminded me that morning that the Christian life is not primarily about finely nuanced talks or academic papers (valuable as they can be) but about ministering to people where they are at in their fullness as people truly created in God’s image and who reflect that image even in the brokenness of their bodies. “Too often,” he noted, “we are more concerned about being right than doing good!”

Rev. Storey paraphrased Mother Teresa in his closing words that Sunday morning in Oxford. I can’t think of a better was to close this blog than to follow his example:

“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” Reflecting on this quotation with respect to the story of the paralytic and his four friends, Peter went on, “Only if the church gets broken open does the world get mended… Open up the Church so wide that the whole world falls in."

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[1] See the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/data.html. This number would be higher if an even broader definition of refugee and internally displaced person were utilized.

[2] See my article in the October 2018 International Bulletin of Mission Research, entitled “Saving Students: European Student Relief in the Aftermath of World War I.”

Recommended Reading: Climate Refugees

This blog has shared numerous stories about how United Methodists are interacting with the issue of refugees and the issue of climate change. As this story from United Methodist missionary and journalist Paul Jeffrey makes clear, these two issues are not entirely separate. Jeffrey's short but interesting article shares several stories from around the world of people displaced by climate change.

Recommended Reading: Westbury UMC's apartment ministry to refugees

While this article about the journey undertaken by Westbury UMC in Houston, TX, in launching an apartment ministry to refugees in the area is a long one, I highly recommend you add it to your summer reading list. The article is a good description of the long and at times difficult and ambiguous process by which Westbury has transformed itself from a large but declining and adrift church to one focused on a particular set of ministries to its community and therefore growing.

Part of what makes this article a good one, though, is that it is not a simple celebration of "five easy steps to turnaround" that this church applied and all others should, too. The article acknowledges the difficulties, complexities, time, effort, and money involved in cross-cultural missional engagement as well as the potential benefits. It is not a simple success story, and not all churches will be able to replicate what Westbury did, nor should they. This article can, however, help all churches to reflect on what it means to do ministry with others in their contexts.

Michael Nausner: The Need of a New Cultural Imagination in Times of Migration

Today's post is by regular contributor Dr. Michael Nausner, Professor of Theology, Prorektor, and Dean of International Affairs at the Reutlingen School of Theology.

Changing Conditions

We live in times of global migration. Migration of course has always been a basic human condition, but the visibility of migrating and fleeing people has increased dramatically since the summer of 2015 in Germany and in many other places in Europe. By the end of the year roughly a million refugees had made their way into Germany alone. I interpret this situation not so much as a sudden crisis that has erupted due to a war, but as an expression of years, decades, and centuries of colonial rule, unjust economic relations, and cultural imperialism.

Whatever our analysis of the reasons of this sudden presence of many refugees may be, we have now reached a stage in which not only the media is full of reports and stories about refugees all over Europe, but we are encountering them on a daily basis on the streets, in the supermarkets, and in public buildings. This means that we are now experiencing with new intensity the inequalities in our global community that have been a reality for a long time.

My hope is that this new visibility eventually turns into a realization that a change of lifestyle in the global west is needed, and into an awareness that we more than ever live in a global and planetary community in which we are mutually dependent of each other. At certain instances such a change of mindset can be noticed already, not least in Methodist congregations in Austria and Germany. Also students and faculty at Reutlingen School of Theology – a United Methodist related institution – are actively involved in having table fellowship with and teaching German to refugees from Eritrea and Syria. Regular eye contact is an effective medicine against stereotypical imagination of the others.

As time is passing I also notice in media and in everyday life an increasing anxiety and aggressiveness aimed at refugees. The horrors at the borders of Macedonia are only one symptom of such anxiety. They are signs of toughening attitudes that win out over human dignity and human rights. But crimes against refugees exceed the crimes committed by refugees both in terms of numbers and severity. Nevertheless the terminology used in the media to describe such large numbers of human beings on the move has been increasingly inflammatory.  Downfall of the occident is just one of these allegedly descriptive terms. The result in the imagination of the general public often is a generalization of “the refugees” and what they are about as well as a tendency toward polarizing asylum seekers and the sedentary population, or even worse: asylum seekers and disadvantaged citizens as necessarily in competition with each other.

Under such conditions I believe that the Christian community is called to contribute to a re-imagination of cultural identity. And the global Methodist connection can play a pivotal role in such a re-imagination. Standing in the Jewish-Christian tradition, it has decisive resources to offer in situations of quickly changing cultural conditions. It can help in the struggle for new narratives in order to develop new strategies of encountering our new “others” with dignity.

The Need of New Narratives

Europe in the last decade or so has developed a very worrisome re-nationalization, in part due to the steady influx of refugees (both inner- and outer-European) and the increasing number of asylum seekers. Old stereotypes about “pure heritage” and the possibility (and alleged necessity) of clear cut distinction lines between cultural spheres are en vogue again. The symbolism we surround ourselves with in the European countries (and in a kind of mutual mirror effect in neighboring countries as well) oftentimes is one of old dreams of superiority. Such symbolism triggers narratives in Europe that are detrimental to a constructive view of current social and cultural conditions.

The warrior on the horse is a case in point. Especially since the sudden rise of Muslim refugees coming to the EU in late 2015 the message of the old visual representations becomes problematic. When a new Europe tries to emerge, falling back on old imaginations is counterproductive. In times of rising tensions between Turkey and the EU the prominence of equestrian statues such as the one of pasha Mehmet II, the conqueror of Constantinople in 1453, and king Ian Sobieski III, the “liberator of Europe” from the Turks in 1683, becomes increasingly problematic. They mirror each other in terms of exclusive territorial and cultural claims in times when the cultural realms are as intimately intertwined as never before.

The constructed nature of such imaginations is easily forgotten when conflicts arise. Do we not risk these days to fall back into the simplifying narratives of the past in which one cultural sphere militantly opposes another one?

Instead a theologically rooted conviction that belonging to different cultures/worlds is part of what it means to be human may be one of the ways in which Methodists around the world could contribute to a more constructive view of the coexistence between human beings on the move and human beings in sheltered conditions. After all a rapidly increasing number of people know themselves to belong to different worlds. But do we have the imagination; do we have good narratives to accommodate such double or multiple belonging?

Belonging to Different Worlds

A theological view of the human being and of human community shows a certain analogy to cultural multiple belonging in as much as Christians through the ages have understood themselves not only to belong to the societal community of everyday life but simultaneously also to a spiritual community that exceeds tangible social connections. There is in other words a certain metaphorical doubleness of Christian existence. Christians are not only members of a certain social group, but always also members of the household of God. Christians are not only citizens of a certain nation, but always also citizens of God’s kingdom. A rethinking of Christian identity as a double identity in the deepest existential sense may help toward a re-imagination of our migratory situation, and it may facilitate new forms of participation with migrants who painfully experience a certain doubleness on a daily basis.

The Second Century Letter to Diognetus is an early Christian document describing such existential double belonging of Christians in very concrete terms: “They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. […] They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.”

The tension between being citizen and foreigner simultaneously – metaphorically speaking – needs to be maintained in the life of Christians. I believe a rethinking of such theological understanding of belonging to two worlds can stir our imagination in positive ways in a social situation in which migrants are denied a double belonging.

Recommended viewing: Beyond Bethlehem video on refugee crisis

The General Board of Global Ministries has put together this informative and moving video about the situation of Middle Eastern refugees not just in the US or Europe but in the Middle East, where most Syrian and Palestinian refugees live. It's about 8 mins. long, but worth a watch.

Recommended reading: Paris attacks and refugee crisis

The world has been rocked in the last week by the ISIS-led terrorist attacks in Paris and Lebanon, the political aftermath, and the implications for the on-going refugee crisis of people fleeing ISIS-led violence in Syria. United Methodists have been among the many responding to and commenting on these issues in the last week. Below is a partial run-down of United Methodist responses. If you know of others, please post them in the comments section.

On the Paris attacks:
A UMC.org story summarizing United Methodist responses
From Bishop Patrick Streiff of the France, Switzerland, and North Africa Annual Conference
From Bishop Warner Brown, head of the UMC Council of Bishops
From Thomas Kemper, General Secretary of GBGM
From Rev. Dr. Susan Henry-Crowe, General Secretary of GBCS
From Moses Kumar, General Secretary of GCFA
News article on interfaith service about terrorism involving the UMC in Germany
A summary of reactions in the Holston Annual Conference
From Mary Elizabeth Moore, Dean of the Boston University School of Theology

On the Syrian refugee crisis:
From Moyoliving.org, 7 Facts About the Current Refugee Crisis and a piece on How Do We See Migrants?
A UMNS story summarizing United Methodist statements on refugees
From GBCS
From Bishop Gary Mueller of the Arkansas Conference
From Bishop Scott Jones of the Great Plains Conference
From Bishop Julius Trimble of the Iowa Conference
From Rev. Dalton Rushing of the North Georgia Conference
From Rev. Wes Magruder of the North Texas Conference
From Rev. Drew McIntyre of the Western North Carolina Conference

Recommended reading: Update on UMC & refugees in Germany

While the media buzz over the refugee crisis in Europe has died down, the crisis itself has not. While the most dramatic situations of tens of thousands detained in Southeast Europe are past, refugees continue to arrive in Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Africa, and elsewhere on a daily basis. Moreover, the hard work of helping refugees settled down into a new life in Germany or elsewhere has truly begun. In that regard, we offer these three glimpses of how The United Methodist Church in Germany is participating in that work of welcoming refugees.

A report from Anne Detjen, the Bishop’s Secretary for Missional Congregation Development in Germany, courtesy of the Dakotas Conference: http://www.dakotasumc.org/news/german-clergy-member-givies-insight-what-is-the-refugee-crisis-like-in-germany/

A video of Rolf Held, UMC pastor in Messstetten, Germany, courtesy of UMCOR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvB0gbm7M2w

A report on the efforts of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Christlicher Kirchen in Deutschland, to which the UMC belongs, courtesy of the German UMC: http://www.emk.de/meldungen-2015/stellungnahme-der-ack-zu-fluechtlingssituation.html