Saving One is One

Our partner worker carried a 12-week-old embryo baby model to deliver the message of “priceless life” to women who were preparing for abortion in the hospital.


 

Abortion, a bloody noun.

 

According to the interpretation of Wikipedia, abortion, also known as miscarriage or induced abortion, is the ending of pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus before it can survive outside the uterus.

 

Under the influence of one child policy, millions of women and mothers undergo abortion or sterilisation every year. The Chinese official report pointed out 13 million cases of abortion annually. When this announcement was still hovering around the ears, some US human rights organisations already felt unacceptable and claimed that the actual number is 10 million more. According to this data, there are 63,013 cases of abortion every day, 2,625 cases every hour, and 43 cases every minute. Various reasons have gradually made abortion a “reasonable” choice and it is silently accepted in the society, which can be implied from an advertisement of a mainland Chinese hospital. In the advertisement, a woman was frustrated because of an unplanned pregnancy. After the hospital’s painless induced abortion, the family and even the grandmother were very happy to welcome her home. Various social influences resulted in sexual experience at young age and the prevalence of abortion.

Continue reading Saving One is One

Why is Reconciliation Important?

Whenever we talk about reconciliation, we always think of our good partner in Zimbabwe, Foundations for Farming (FfF). We are honoured to have Brian, their founder, to share with us the power of reconciliation and forgiveness through his journey on founding FfF.

Continue reading Why is Reconciliation Important?

The Ever-roving Lisu

One might readily connect words like “refugees” and “war” to the Syrians, the Rohingya people, or the South Sudanese.

 

In fact, besides the Rohingya refugee crisis in Rakhine State of Myanmar, another 200,000 people in the country were forced to be internally displaced from Kachin State in the north, Shan State in north-east, and Kayin State in south-east due to unceasing armed conflicts. The United Nations estimated that close to 172,000 individuals in these three states need humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, humanitarian effort is limited due to safety concern or inaccessibility in non-government-controlled areas.

Continue reading The Ever-roving Lisu

Spreading Love in a Divided Land

CEDAR believes that the root of poverty derives from exploitation and oppression between people due to broken relationship, a lack of sympathy towards others, and a lack of unity against poverty due to loose relationship with others. Hence, our work on development and poverty alleviation also includes reconciliation projects. Through the next two months, we will cover the topic of reconciliation in our ePrayers to reflect about our faith and work. Let’s take a look at a project in India.

Continue reading Spreading Love in a Divided Land

Week 7: Shalom and Creation Care

(This article[1] was extract from Live Just.ly, published by Micah Challenge in 2014.)

 

Written by: Ben Lowe, Jason Fileta, and Lisa Graham Mcminn

 

We hope to take this article published by Micah Challenge as the closing ePrayer article for the Lent season. Echoing to week 1’s article and the theme of “Reconciling with the Land”, let’s continue to look at the passage from Colossians chapter 1 and reflect together when we talk about shalom, we should not neglect caring for God’s creation.

 

When we think of the need for shalom in the world, it is easy to think first and mainly of human concerns such as the conflict in Syria, southern Sudan’s crisis, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

We rarely think of environmental issues such as pollution, animal suffering, deforestation, and a scarcity of water. But Jesus Christ is the Lord of all, and he is bringing peace and reconciliation to all levels of relationships through his blood shed on the cross:

Continue reading Week 7: Shalom and Creation Care

Week 6: Busyness is Not an Excuse

As Lent is coming to an end this year, it’s our hope to have aided you in the journey of loving God, one another, and the land with this “Reconciling with the Land” ePrayer series, through the promotion of mindful uses of resources and ending our habits that would exploit the environment God has given us. However, taking care of the land is not a festive activity! We shall never neglect the consequences of our actions on the environment at any given time, no matter how busy we might be. Our partner, SATHI, and the slum community in Bangladesh, set an example for us in loving the land daily.

Continue reading Week 6: Busyness is Not an Excuse