Blogs

ALARM Featured on RejectApathy.com

2012-05-16T17:47:05+00:00

ALARM was recently featured on RejectApathy.com, a website started by Relevant Magazine as a place where like-minded world-changers can connect, dialogue and challenge one another to affect change locally and globally.

To read the full article, visit http://rejectapathy.com/violence/spotlights/26272-alarm

Killing Our People

2012-05-15T13:43:00+00:00

In Juba, the capital of South Sudan, ALARM rents office space from Bishop Gwynne Theological College, where I teach church history and where the principal is a friend of Celestin's. The college has students from all over South Sudan, modeling a tribal unity that will be much needed over the coming decades. Last year, the graduating class learned community peacebuilding skills at an ALARM seminar. Last month, ALARM helped the library acquire training books from the British charity Tearfund on how local churches can respond to natural and man-made disasters.

One of my students, a tall, quiet man named James Dut, is from Northern Bahr el Ghazal, a small state on the border with Sudan. Last night he learned that his three year old nephew, Mayom, had been killed by a Sudanese bomb. The bomb had been dropped from an Antonov--the cargo planes turned makeshift bombers that have been dispatched from Khartoum to terrorize Southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains and Darfur for decades.

Mayom's father (my student's brother) lives in the United States and is an American citizen. He married a South Sudanese woman and is saving up and hoping to return to his homeland.

On May 2, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution about the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan. Though the statement showed little recognition of the many agreements and international laws broken by the Sudanese government, it did call upon the two countries to: "...immediately cease all hostilities, including aerial bombardments,..." South Sudan welcomed the resolution. Sudan said that it would implement the parts it wanted and ignore the rest. Sudan's signing statement to the resolution denied any aerial bombardments.

But there are bombardments, and last night one of them cost Mayom his young life.

Mayom's family is South Sudanese, but they are also American. I ask you to pray for them. For the sake of comforting the afflicted, and for the sake of being heard, I ask you to wail with them, For those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. - Psalm 126.5-6

John Marienau Turpin

ALARM-South Sudan Communications & Resource Development Coordinator

The Republic of Sudan - ALARM Holds the Church Together

2012-05-09T13:54:16+00:00

In April I spent three days in Khartoum meeting, encouraging, ministering, and strengthening the remnant of the Church leaders and ALARM Staff. I had heard reports about the impact on the Church and Christian communities due to South Sudan’s independence and the returning of church leaders and pastors back to South Sudan. My time with church leaders and congregations in Khartoum and Omdurman helped me to see that the problem is even bigger than I imagined.

It would have been easy for me to fall into despair, but I was greatly encouraged after meeting the dynamic ALARM Staff in Khartoum and its board members, who are from major denominations operating in northern Sudan from different races, tribes, and regions. I was also encouraged that ALARM-Sudan continues to enjoy the support and recognition, not only from the Christian community, but also from the government, non-governmental organizations, and human rights organizations.

ALARM-Sudan is a small team composed of an Arab Christian, a Nubian Christian, and a Darfurian Christian. All of them are BMB (Believers of Muslim Background) and are not only providing leadership development, peacebuilding, and social justice training, but they have also been involved in community transformation and providing relief aid to the suffering people of South Kordofan, Darfur, and Blue Nile regions. Through small committees of religious leaders in different regions of northern Sudan, a small team of committed believers is making a great impact in a context that is very difficult. Most international relief agencies have been banned from reaching the internally displaced peoples (IDPs). A northern Sudan team, with gifts from partners, has been able to reach women and children from South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains who are being housed in churches, mosques, schools and homes of believers in North Kordofan.

Two factors have left the Church in northern Sudan vulnerable and without a united voice to advocate for her rights in a more radicalized religious context.

1) The South Sudanese residing in northern Sudan were, by law, required to return to South Sudan after independence, leaving a large vacuum of trained leadership within the northern Sudan churches.

2) The Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) has not been able to function due to leadership problems and the decision of the Khartoum government to ban anyone from South Sudan from holding a leadership position in a legally registered institution in Sudan.

A Bishop told me that without ALARM, there is no one to unite the Church of north Sudan. “We have been divided and we are scattered. ALARM is our only hope for building a new Sudan Council of Churches or an alternative to unite our weak and vulnerable Churches in the Republic of Sudan.”

ALARM-Sudan is standing in the gap as we have always done in regions of tribal violence and political turmoil. We need to train, develop, and equip more leaders to strengthen the church, to transform their communities and to be peacemakers and mediators who will reconcile different races and tribes in Darfur, South Kordofan, Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile.

Please stand with the Church in Sudan through your prayerful and financial support.

-Celestin Musekura

President & Founder

ALARM Participates in Global Peace Initiative of Women

2012-04-17T19:39:02+00:00

Three ALARM staff members participated in the10th-anniversary gathering of the Global Peace Initiative of Women held March 1-7 in Kenya. The initiative, which draws on religious leaders to discuss critical global issues, including peace and reconciliation in some of the most war-torn regions of the world.

To read the full report of the gathering, visit: http://ncronline.org/news/global/peace-seekers-gather-kenyan-plain

Completed Well in Uganda

2012-04-13T14:33:26+00:00

Impure water continues to be one of the leading causes of death and disease. ALARM partner, Watermark Church, funded this well in Uganda recently as a part of a larger community initiative.

Practicing Verbal Restraint

2012-04-10T00:20:33+00:00

I received the latest of the facebook/internet misinformation campaigns (this one about a particular religious group). Someone picks up a rumor or deliberately misrepresents someone or something. Then others pick it up and pass it along and the further down the chain it gets the more legitimate it seems.

A few suggestions for acting responsibly in social media.

1. Focus on the positive. Choose to not portray others in bad light ever particularly in a mean-spirited way. Those who throw stones may find that the stones are returned with vigor!

2. Be slow in passing along negative news. Particularly be slow to pass along news regarding another person and organization simply because of not agreeing with a position, political or religious affiliation.

3. Think critically. Avoid the mindless stereo-typing that fails to ever praise or think the best of another but rather classifies all one’s actions, words and positions as suspect. Stereo typing also includes considering all individuals from a particular group as the same-universally bad. For example, all Republicans are . . . . or all Democrats are . . . or all Christians or Muslims or all men or all women. This is unfair and mindless.

4. Exercise restraint on those reports that go viral. Don't pass something significant along without significant investigation . . . 10 people that cite the same source does not equal 10 sources but one source. Often the same language in each post is a give-away.

5. Consider other perspectives. Check with some of the major news sources that function from different perspectives. Some of us would benefit from reading the New York Times and others would benefit from the Economist. The BBC and CNN give different perspectives than Fox News for example.

6. Practice the face to face rule: would I say face to face with this person what I am about to post?

-Meredith Wheeler is the International Director of ALARM

Worship Even In The Midst of Trials in Sudan

2012-04-02T15:34:28+00:00

Last night I had a wonderful Sunday service in Omdurman, Sudan, just outside of Khartoum. I preached to a Nubian Congregation and witnessed an ALARM Graduation of 25 Children Sunday School Teachers who had spent a week learning how to lead Children to Christ. The whole congregation sang Psalms 78 in celebration. Vibrant worship even in the midst of trials! ALARM is at the forefront of strengthening the weak knees and providing encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Sudan. I am heading to Burundi this morning.

-Celestin Musekura

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing Today

2012-03-15T01:10:53+00:00

In Washington D.C. this week to visit my daughter Prudance. Honored to attend the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing today on Sudan and South Sudan Independence and Insecurity. Enjoyed the presentation by the Honorable Princeton Lyman (U.S. Presidential Special Envoy to Sudan), Nancy Lindborg (USAID) and Mr. George Clooney and John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project who just returned from South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains where ALARM has been laboring for years.

To read more about the Senate hearing today, you can watch this link from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t3#/video/showbiz/2012/03/14/bts-clooney-sudan-hearing.cnn

To learn more about the Enough Project and the conflict currently taking place in the Nuba Mountains, watch the video below:

-Celestin Musekura

Ways to Respond to the Plight of Children (Response to Invisible Children)

2012-03-08T17:08:10+00:00

A number of people have asked ALARM: what can we do in response to the needs raised by the Invisible Children video? For years now ALARM has been quietly working on the ground with pastors, widows, orphans and child soldiers. You can support an orphan through ALARM's orphan care ministry that is hosted by Watermark's website http://watermarkworldwide.com/ You can support a child who is heading their household (both parents gone but a child holding the family together) through ALARM's website and designate a gift. This program costs $50/month. You can contact ALARM about going to Africa. One time gifts for our micro-finance programs for women throughout east Africa empower families. You can advocate on behalf of ALARM about African's meeting the needs of Africans. These are a few ways to engage. Contact us for more information.

Documentary Release by Invisible Children

2012-03-08T01:28:13+00:00

Invisible Children has done great good advocating for child victims of war and former child soldiers. They have made bringing war criminal, Joseph Kony to justice. This week, they released a very well done film that I would encourage everyone to view.

I am attaching a guest commentator that adds some thoughtful perspective to their documentary. Rick Howard, criminal lawyer and Director of External Focus for Watermark Church, Dallas.

-Meredith Wheeler

"Hi folks,

The link below, for those of you who’ve not been emailed 20 times today about it, is for an effort called Kony 2012. It is a great history teller of the horrible impact that Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have had on the Acholi people of Northern Uganda. Kony’s war on the Acholi and their children started well over 10 years ago and he is just the latest in the long line of oppressive and brutal terrorists wreaking havoc in that area. I love this filmmaker’s passion for justice….I love that he is calling on people to get into the game and fight for justice….I love that he has gotten the attention of Washington DC and our leaders. Those causes are all worthy of embracing.

However, the real message of Hope in Christ is nowhere to be found in this video…..as much as I love all the other causes, absent an understanding that without the presence of Christ in the lives of the people of Uganda (or any other country) the next Kony is lurking in the bush waiting to take his place. That is what Kony did….he stepped into the shoes of power of another brutal person.

So, my encouragement to you guys as you tweet, FB, email, etc. is to make sure the message gets out that sure this is a great effort, but only God can “change the world” as the filmmaker talks about. Let folks know that your church is engaged in this effort already by mentoring, teaching, training, and loving the kids you saw in that video in partnership with ALARM. The trade school we built in Pader, Uganda with ALARM was inspired by the night walker kids who came into Gulu to escape the LRA and the Acholi children who were kidnapped by Kony and somehow escaped or were freed, but had nowhere to go because their lives had been stolen from them while in captivity. We’ve been involved for 5 years in this effort and we even had team there right now training pastors and women leaders to live out Micah 6:8, Mark 10:43-45, and Ephesians 2:8-10.

My request for each of you is that when you send this link out you make it much more than a call to social justice….you make it a call to believers to get in the game because the good works should be accompanied by the good news. This a great gospel opportunity to talk about what the church should and is doing and what those in your sphere of influence can and should be doing. This should be more than a Kony 2012 sign on April 20. It should be mentoring a kid in west Dallas who has a Kony of their own putting a pistol in their hand so they can be a lookout for a drug deal or visiting a young woman in prison whose Kony was a crack dealer or caring for single mom whose Kony left her with three kids and no child support. That is the gospel lived out and that is how what justice looks like to God….see Isaiah 58.

Praying we all use this as yet another tool God is giving us to share His story of impacting the world forever not just a day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Rick Howard | Director of International External Focus
Watermark Community Church"