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Disaster Response
Several ministries of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have issued alerts and provided information on their activities in response to the ongoing conflict in South Sudan. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 1.61 million people are internally displaced and another 751,000 people have escaped into neighboring countries, including Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, since conflict broke out in 2013.
Heavy rains, mudslides and flooding continue to wreak havoc on parts of Peru, leaving nearly a hundred people dead and hundreds of thousands without homes. The South American country was caught off guard by the rains that began in mid-January but grew worse in the past few weeks causing severe flooding and subsequent mudslides in the region.
The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), a long-time Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) partner, is requesting prayers for victims of violence after several attacks by bandits from neighboring South Sudan in the past two weeks.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance recently sent a National Response Team to the panhandle of Texas. Recent wildfires have left four people dead, more than 350,000 acres damaged, and as many as 10,000 horses and cattle displaced. An estimated 2,500 animals are believed to have perished in the rapidly moving fires.
For two weeks, a delegation from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) visited 10 villages in the countries of Sierra Leone and Liberia. The villages are participants in the West Africa Initiative (WAI), a partnership of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, Presbyterian Hunger Program and Self-Development of People.
A Sierra Leone resident recently said that the drive from Kenema to the Liberian border is like riding six hours inside of a concrete mixer. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) delegates visiting the region agreed with this assessment after making the trip on the all-dirt road.
The ‘Flint Water Crisis’ video story in the June 2016 ‘Keeping Faith’ segment with Tony De La Rosa, Interim Executive Director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, has received a Telly Awards honor.
Between Freetown and Kenema, Sierra Leone, there is an old dirt road off the main highway that winds its way further and further into the wilderness. Sometimes the holes in the road are half as big as the cars that drive around them. At the end of the 20-minute ride is the village of Makai Sanka, one of the groups in the so-called central cluster of the West Africa Initiative (WAI).
Three ministries with Compassion, Peace and Justice are in Sierra Leone this week to see first hand how work is progressing for the West Africa Initiative, a collaboration of Presbyterian Hunger Program (PHP), Self-Development of People (SDOP) and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA).
While violence and fear continue to pervade war-torn Syria, Presbyterians across the United States are helping those displaced by the conflict rebuild their lives. Since the war began in 2011, at least 13.5 million people have been forced to leave their homes and seek safety in Lebanon, Jordan, Europe and the United States. The United Nations estimates 400,000 others have been killed in the conflict.
