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Bridges Summer 2021_Bridges Summer 2021 6/14/21 11:11 AM Page 1 Brethren Disaster Ministries Rebuilding Homes • Nurturing Children • Responding Globally Vol. 22, Summer 2021 Pondering Connections— INSIDE Hurricanes, Tornados, Migrating COVID-19 Response Updates............2 CDS Updates ....................................3 Children, and NE Nigeria Who is my neighbor? ........................3 by Roy Winter Rebuilding Lives in Central While pondering the America: Hurricane Recovery ..........4 diversity of BDM’s CDS Moving Forward with Fall different ministries in Training Schedule............................4 this issue, I was struck Grants Expand Nigeria Crisis by how they have an Response and COVID-19 Relief ......5 important connection. Volcanic Eruption near Goma, Maybe thinking about DR Congo ......................................5 these connections can Rebuilding Updates ..........................6 help us be better partners Would you like to receive BRIDGES in disaster recovery and by email?..........................................6 even work more at BDM Project Expenses Correction ....6 preventing future disasters. A New Pathway for Renters in Dayton, Ohio ..................................7 Having two major Aerial view of some of the flooding caused by Hurricane Eta in Honduras. hurricanes strike land in Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy Rebuilding Homes and Mending Broken Hearts ................................7 November (Eta & Iota in Central America) caused me to really tornados, and floods. I understand that Virtual Blood Drive ..........................8 pause and wonder. November hurricanes warming oceans and climate change are are unusual and ones that make landfall a significant part of these trends. are even more unusual. But having two I also recalled listening to Nigerian storms form in November has never farmers and church leaders share their happened, and they both struck deep concern about climate change, Nicaragua within 15 miles of each other is a program of the changing rains, longer droughts, and Church of the Brethren and just 13 days apart. The greatest more years with crop failure. Some are destruction of homes from these storms trying different crops that are more occurred in Honduras, where government drought tolerant. This, along with a corruption and organized crime already growing population of young adults made most people’s lives difficult and without job prospects, helped to create is a program of dangerous, or worse. the crisis in Northeast Nigeria. I then Brethren Disaster Ministries When reflecting on the rebuilding remembered how Haitian farmers talked project in Dayton, Ohio, I recalled that about similar changes and hardships For more information on the 2019 Memorial Day tornado outbreak from changing rain patterns. Brethren Disaster Ministries had some unusually strong tornados and 1-800-451-4407 Climate change is an area of program www.brethren.org/bdm set a new record for the most tornados to emphasis for many of our partners, touch down in one day in Ohio. In my including Church World Service. 20 years working with BDM, we have The United Nations puts it this way: often responded to unprecedented or “Climate change is the defining crisis of record-breaking hurricanes, typhoons, continued on page 2 Bridges Summer 2021_Bridges Summer 2021 6/14/21 11:11 AM Page 2 Pondering Connections continued from page 1 migrants. One solution our time and disaster displacement one is to help address the of its most devastating consequences.” hunger and poverty (www.unhcr.org/en-us/climate- in the countries from change-and-disasters.html) which migrants flee, The challenges of climate change, such as by rebuilding including more frequent and homes in Honduras, devastating disasters, are also part so that people will be of the mix in global migrations able to recover from (certainly violence, poverty, the storms and find economic opportunity, and more hope again in their also play a part). We see it in the homeland. influx of Latin American and In my pondering, I Caribbean refugees along our keep wondering how southern border. As a parent of two the Church and BDM married children, and hoping to be should address the a grandfather soon, I understand root causes of poverty, parents wanting to make sure their hunger, and migration. children don’t have to struggle to Given the influence simply survive. We want our kids to that changes in climate do better than us. Called by Christ have on disasters and to care for the stranger, CDS is BDM’s ministry, it is responding by caring for children at time to focus more on an immigrant respite center in Texas. reducing the impact These issues are complex, with on disaster survivors many factors besides the environment through better and climate impacting people living mitigation and The 2019 Memorial Day tornadoes in Ohio damaged or destroyed in poverty and those who become preparedness. 1,779 residences, including apartment buildings. Photos courtesy of Sam Dewey COVID-19 Response Updates COVID-19 Outbreak in India other grants, encourage their churches opportunity for additional grants. Worsens for Indian Brethren to support outreach and relief efforts The Global COVID-19 Pandemic A spiking of COVID-19 infections themselves. Grant program continues to provide in India started in early April and The U.S. COVID-19 Pandemic emergency support to global Churches quickly grew to the world’s worst Grant program supports churches of the Brethren and selected partners, outbreak with more than 4,000 and districts in meeting humanitarian including CoB groups in the COVID-19 related deaths a day. needs in their congregations and Democratic Republic of Congo, Sadly, this has led to the deaths of communities. Even though the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nigeria, several Church of the Brethren in pandemic is better controlled in the Rwanda, Spain and Venezuela, and India leaders. Emergency Disaster United States and vaccines are being mission points in Ecuador, Honduras, Fund (EDF) grants have been offered provided, new grant requests are Mexico, and South Sudan. to support the church, but an Indian still being accepted. Churches that The COVID-19 grant programs will law called the Foreign Exchange received grants and have provided continue as long as needed, providing Management Act, passed in 1999, good reporting are offered the funds are available. makes transferring funds to India very difficult and so far grant funding COVID-19 Pandemic Grant Summary 2020 — May 31, 2021 Amount has not been possible. Brazil (and other countries in U.S. Grants 29 congregations from 11 districts $177,562 northern South America) have also 11 Global CoB denominations and mission Global Brethren Grants $231,050 seen their highest spike in cases and points deaths in 2021. Brazil Brethren also 3 Partners – Church World Service, IMA suffered the death of a key church Global Partner Grants $80,000 World Health, Project Global Village leader to COVID-19. Church leaders, seeking to be independent of EDF and Total $488,612 2 Bridges Summer 2021_Bridges Summer 2021 6/14/21 11:11 AM Page 3 CDS Updates Texas Deployments CDS reconnected Children’s Disaster Services (CDS) with the center, deployed three teams to work with where it worked in children along the U.S./Mexico 2018, in response to border in Texas in April and May the growing pressure 2021. The teams spent a total of since the beginning six weeks at the Catholic Charities of 2021 on systems Humanitarian Respite Center of designed to help the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV), migrant families providing creative play opportunities seeking asylum due for the children and much needed to two devastating rest for their parents before the next hurricanes that hit leg of their journey. They averaged Central America in 73 child contacts per day, with a November 2020 The second CDS Texas team photographed with Sister Norma Pimentel total of 2,651 children served during and changes in U.S. (second from right). Photo courtesy of Patty Henry their deployments. The volunteer border policy. Sister coordinator at CCRGV stated, Norma Pimentel, executive director of amazing. This is love, this is beautiful”. “Thanks for all you do to help. We CCRGV, reminds us that this CDS was glad to be able to be part of truly appreciate it and the children humanitarian work is crucial, saying the children’s journey for a brief time love it!” “touching somebody’s life, reaching out while they passed through the CCRGV. to them, bringing a smile to a child is continued on page 4 Who is my neighbor? by Raiza Spratt, CDS volunteer, Texas, April 2021 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not that fit them, forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some clean clothes people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. with dignity, Hebrews 13: 1-2 (NIV) water that My neighbor sometimes arrives like a quiet whisper hydrates, a or a breeze I may or may not notice. doctor with compassion, My neighbor is the child who comes running with a work without Photo by Raiza Spratt grateful hug because he found a safe oasis to play. exploitation, and food without strings attached. My neighbor is a person who feels pain, feels hunger, My neighbor sometimes comes without physical feels anxiety, feels the blisters on their feet from walking, belongings but they carry the Minga and Fiesta, they feels the weight of problems that are too big for any one carry heritage and values with them. They carry a person or any one country to solve. language with memories. My neighbor yearns to be noticed, to be seen as a Some neighbors are polite and share and some human being. neighbors grab and take because they remember a time My neighbor hides the struggles and pain that they when they didn’t have and they don’t know when their next opportunity will come. carry with them. My neighbor’s journey took anywhere from days to My neighbor is a person, a human being, someone years, enduring the unpredictable weather of valleys, who chooses Hope over fear, and it is that hope that mountains, deserts, rivers, and politics.