World Refugee Sunday seeks to raise Global Church Awareness
Tuesday 26 May 2009
By Michael Ireland
Sunday, May 24, 2009
UNITED STATES (ANS) -- World Refugee Sunday, a day where the churches are encouraged to focus on refugees and refugee related issues, will be commemorated on June 21st this year.
World Refugee Sunday is an annual event, held on two consecutive Sundays and celebrated by the Refugee Highway Partnership (RHP) in cooperation with the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA).
According to a media release from the WEA, the event aims to raise awareness and to pray for the situation of refugees around the world.
Originally launched as a cooperative network within the WEA in 2001, the RHP is a community of Christians from around the globe who share a commitment to welcome and serve refugees. The RHP also desires to see the church become more actively involved in refugee ministry.
Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe (Courtesy: WEA).
Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe, the International Director of WEA, said in the news release that he hopes World Refugee Sunday will engage the people of faith worldwide on issues of millions of displaced people.
"In our ongoing concern for the poor and the marginalized, WEA is pleased to be a part of promoting World Refugee Sunday on June 21, an attempt to mobilize the global church to pray for the more than 40 million refugees and internally displaced peoples," said Tunnicliffe, who serves as an advisor to the RHP.
He added: "As Jesus calls his followers to be concerned for all of 'the least of these,' WEA calls the worldwide evangelical community to participate in this event and pray for families who because of war, violence or disaster are forced from their homes and communities."
A number of resource tools have been designed to bring wider awareness to churches on refugee issues and increase their participation in supporting and praying for the displaced. These tools can be found at the Refugee Highway website: www.refugeehighway.net .
World Evangelical Alliance is made up of 128 national evangelical alliances located in 7 regions and 104 associate member organizations.
The vision of WEA is to extend the Kingdom of God by making disciples of all nations and by Christ-centered transformation within society. WEA exists to foster Christian unity, to provide an identity, voice and platform for the 420 million evangelical Christians worldwide.
