[2nd Week “Micah Sunday” Prayer]
Our Lord Most High, you are Lord of the earth and Lord of everything in Hong Kong. Thank you for your grace towards us and please hear our voices as we pray for this place today.
[1st Week “Micah Sunday” Prayer]
Prayer of Diligence
Dear Lord, as we reflect on the past decade, please enable us to see the world and the souls in it in the way you see them. Tell us the things that we should pray for, and most importantly, lead our hearts with your reconciling redemption and the hope given to us through your grace, that we could care for the world and the people that you held dear.
The 71st Session of United Nations General Assembly kicked off on 13th of September, where Summit for Refugees and Migrants will be held next Monday, with another summit about the refugees held on Tuesday. Representatives of different nations and NGOs are following the discussions closely although they are not anticipating something overly positive. Meanwhile they still hope that the members of UN would be reminded of their leading roles in solving the global refugee crisis and in acknowledging the human rights of the refugees.
Continue reading Tear Down the Walls that Reject the Refugees
The negative effect of poverty often spans across generations. Farmers who migrated to the cities for better opportunities usually find themselves experiencing the same hardships, only in different forms, while putting their children in a specific set of challenges.
Kunming is the destination of a large migrant worker population. Children who migrated with their parents are often very young and suffer from the transition from rural areas to cities. They are often being segregated over their status, and are excluded from the local education, medical, and residential benefits due to the ownership of foreign household registrations. Schools are less likely to admit them, and even if the family could afford the high tuition, the children might not adapt to the different education model so easily. Busy parents lack the time to stay with their children, which aggravates the situation. There are numerous cases where children are being hurt in traffic accidents, drowning, and robbery each year.
The sights of lifeless and dirty refugee children gathering in the tents set up by the United Nation, or a girl whose face is covered in blood, are only seen on news and donations soliciting advertisements, and could never be seen in Hong Kong… or could they?
Continue reading Refugees in Hong Kong─The Sorrows of Asylum Seekers
In Bangladesh, arranged marriage is seen as a blessing to the family of young girls, who are often below the legal age of marriage.
Rainy is an Indian girl living in the slums of Bangladesh. Her family is of the lowest caste and could only sustain themselves by doing corpse clearers and janitorial works. They were forbidden from interacting with their community and the women in the family were not allowed outside. Rainy’s parents believed that arranging a marriage for her is a blessing to the family, and was conceivably grateful when they found a man in a rich family proposing to Rainy when she was 15, who recalled, “I was only a kid at the age of 15, I didn’t want to get married yet.” Despite her obvious reluctance and concerns, Rainy’s parents proceeded to arrange for the wedding ceremony. Fortunately, SATHI’s staff visited them in the process and explained to them the drawbacks and unlawfulness of underage marriage, which consequently led them to give in and cancelled the marriage.
Rainy is one of the few lucky girls in Bangladesh who escaped the fate of arranged marriage at a young age, who subsequently finished her high school despite the demeaning tradition.
Continue reading A Life with Hope, Untangled from Underage Marriage
