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Expansion will allow clothing close to grow
Liberty Quartet will make a stop July 1 at
church
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Friends letter praises government, requests more help |
Newberg Friends Church urges the government to
increase help in Sudan |
By Schellene Clendenin, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Schellene at sclendenin@eaglenewspapers.com
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Life in the country of Sudan is
a perilous thing.
The African country is bordered by Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, the
Congo, Chad, Uganda and Kenya.
More than 41 million people live there, a country just over
one-fourth the size of the United States.
More than 150,000 struggle for survival as refugees in neighboring
countries, according to the CIA Web site,
www.cia.gov.
More than 400,000 people in Sudan are stricken with AIDS or HIV.
The chances of contracting a major infectious disease, such as
hepatitis A or malaria, are high. Life expectancy hovers around 58
years.
Almost constant fighting between ethnic and rebel militia since the
1950s penetrates all its border states that provide shelter for
fleeing refugees, the CIA stated. Little land, just more than 6
percent, is available for farming.
But a recent peace agreement signed between the Sudanese
governments and the largest rebel group in Darfur, the western
region of the country, has a local church rejoicing and asking the
state department to continue its efforts for peace.
Newberg Friends Church members recently signed a letter of
support/request for continued assistance to the U.S. State
Department, the White House, and senators and representatives of the
state of Oregon praising them for their work toward peace.
“Trying to achieve real peace is no small task,” said Phil Smith,
clerk of the peace missions team at the church and a professor of
philosophy at George Fox University.
He said the letter was a “big thank you to people in the state
department, to the people who are making peace.”
“Quakers,” the letter said, “have a moral, scriptural and spiritual
obligation to work for peace in the world. We have been very
concerned about the genocide in Darfur.”
But peace is not the only aim of the church, nor should it be the
only focus of the United Nations and the United States in
particular, they said.
The letter asked the United States government to step up and help
with a food program for refugees in Darfur. “We should support and
fully fund the food program in Darfur,” Smith said.
Although countries in the United Nations have offered up more than
$7 million to feed the hungry in Darfur, Smith said the promise of
funds has yet to be kept. Were the United States to provide all of
the funds it would be a bargain to help these people, he said.
“Newberg Friends is just another Christian church, as we all follow
Christ and want to see peace in the world,” Smith said, adding, “The
only difference with churches is in the way they pursue that peace.” |
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From
June 17, 2006, Newberg Graphic
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