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This information comes from the November update from DSPR (Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees – Middle East Council of Churches).

In Lebanon the Coronavirus outbreak is increasing with the state of 6 million people recoding over 83,000 cases. Deep mistrust of the government, especially since the massive explosion in Beirut, means new measures have been resisted and people are less likely to co-operate with government instructions.

Refugees are ever more vulnerable due to the pressure on financial and medical resources but here are two stories of hope from the Bourj El Shamali Camp in Tyre, South Lebanon.

72 year old Ahmad Mousa suffers from back problems and struggles to support his 8 children, one of whom is mentally disabled. His only means of earning income is by collecting plastic bottles and selling them for recycling. Only his eldest child is earning any money, working in agriculture. The family are trying very hard to put in place the Coronavirus precautions and Ahmad only leaves the confines of the camp to collect medicine for his disabled child from the UNWRA clinic. He relies on other households and shopkeepers to give the family food so he was grateful to receive a credit voucher enabling him to buy food and hygiene supplies.

Nabiha Yousef also received a voucher to spend on food. Nabiha is struggling to save money for an artificial limb as she has lost her foot due to diabetes complications, She is the breadwinner for her three children, running a small shop from her home, so any help is welcome.

In Dbayeh Camp in Lebanon, Coronavirus has meant that families have lost income and work due to the quarantine restrictions and the already difficult economic situation in the country.

Hygiene and social distancing are a problem. Houses only have one bathroom, there is no extra space for isolating and the camp is crowded with people living in close proximity to one another.

In spite of Coronavirus adding to the hardships already suffered by refugees in camps in Lebanon the aid organisations including DSPR are doing all they can to provide practical help and continue their training programmes via social media.

The Executive Secretary of DSPR Dr Bernard Sabella offers this commitment :
“We remain steadfast in our determination to serve, to live with the virus and to hope for better days.”

The Kohima Epitaph :

The Kohima Epitaph is the epitaph carved on the Memorial of the 2nd British Division in the cemetery of Kohima (North-East India). It reads:

‘When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Your Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.’

The verse is attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875-1958), and is thought to have been inspired by the epitaph written by Simonides to honour the Greeks who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480BC.

Read Rajindar Singh Dhatt’s recollections of liberating Kohima at https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/stories/rajindar’s-story

Rajindar today

The President and Vice President of Conference have written an open letter to people of all faiths to mark Interfaith Week.

Read it at : https://www.methodist.org.uk/about-us/news/latest-news/all-news/presidency-marks-inter-faith-week-with-letter-celebrating-friendship/ .

Here are some great examples of interfaith projects to explore in Interfaith Week.

Interfaith Week 2020 begins on Sunday 8^th November and ends on 15th November this year. The aims are to strengthen good interfaith relations at all levels, increase awareness of the different and distinct faith communities in the UK and to increase understanding between people of religious and non-religious beliefs. For more information, resources and to see details of events taking place, go to : https://www.interfaithweek.org.

BUDDY SCHEME

Woking People of Faith set up a “buddy scheme” whereby ladies of different faiths and no faith paired up to support each other, discuss their beliefs and get to know each other. This was done on the telephone due to the Coronavirus restrictions. Trinity Methodist Church in Woking is taking part in this https://trinitywoking.org.uk. as well as the Shah Jehan Mosque. http://www.wokingmosque.org.uk. See more https://wpof.org.uk or an article on the Buddy Project on https://semethodistrefugeework.com/news/

LITTLE SQUARES OF HOPE

The Council of Christians and Jews encouraged various refugee groups, schools and organisations to portray their ideas of “Shelter from storm” on small squares of material in commemoration of Sukkot. This is the Jewish festival marking the 40 years post exodus period of displacement. The squares of material were then sewn together to make a temporary Sukkah shelter, on display in the Jewish Museum. See more here :

Online Exhibition

– https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/collections/online-collections/little-squares-of-hope/ 

Virtual Showcase Clip – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKNsmzQXPp0 

NOSTRA AETATE : a good news story.

Last Wednesday was the 55^th anniversary of this innovative Roman Catholic concord which brought in a new era in Christian/Jewish dialogue. There is an article in The Tablet about this : https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/13522/catholic-jewish-leaders-mark-55th-anniversay-of-nostra-aetate.

The profound influence Nostra Aetate had on Christian/Jewish relations was mentioned at the Holocaust Study Day 4/11/20 run by Menorah Synagogue, when David Arnold referred to it as changing the way in which the Catholic Church began to work out its attitude towards the Jewish tradition.

Peace be with you.

Reverend Claire Hargreaves

Interfaith and Refugee Adviser

SE District Methodist Church

claire.hargreaves@methodist.org.uk

Last week this family lost their lives at sea, trying to cross the English Channel. 22 people were crammed into a 20foot rigid inflatable boat. This family and perhaps two more people drowned when the boat capsized off the French coast in rough seas and strong offshore winds.

What makes people so desperate that they risk their lives to cross the sea in bad weather in small boats?

War, persecution, extreme poverty are all reasons why people leave their homes and try to forge a new and better life in another country. This family of Iranian Kurds from Sardasht in Northern Iran, may have suffered persecution as well as economic hardship. The media reports that Rasoul Iran-Nejad was 35, a construction worker, who with his wife Shiva Mohammad-panahi, daughter Anita, 9, and two sons Armin 6 and Artin 15 months, left Iran in August.

Trafficking gangs may have facilitated the family’s long and difficult journey through Turkey, Italy and Greece to France. While in Greece, the family were arrested, searched and lost all their belongings, according to a migrant who lent them money to buy clothes. Rasoul had told his family they were heading for Germany and Switzerland but they ended up in France living in the squalid tented Puythouck camp near Dunkirk that is shelter for some 200 migrants mainly from Iran and Iraq.

From there it is likely that they paid up to £20,000 to people smugglers for a place on the small inadequate boat which capsized barely a mile off the coast of France.

It is reported that fellow migrants in the camp had tried to warn the family that the crossing was too dangerous. One said the family felt they had no choice but to go as they were worrying about money which they had borrowed, even though they were fearful for the children’s lives on such a tiny boat.

Another migrant who turned back when he saw how overcrowded and unsafe the boat was, tried to persuade the family not to board, saying that the smugglers were only interested in money and the “middle man” was forcing people to get on the boat.

People might say this family made a choice and they knew the risks, but trafficking gangs exploit vulnerable people in difficult situations, enticing them with false promises of a golden future in the UK to uproot themselves . Families like Rasoul’s, desperate for a better life for their children, are lured by people traffickers claiming that the asylum process in the UK is quick and easy, that high earning jobs are freely available and government help is generous.

The news headlines have moved on from the tragic loss of this family. Coronavirus, the USA election, the terrible earthquake in Turkey have pushed the plights of these migrants out of the press once more. The situation has not gone away, even though it has dropped out of the news for now. The issue of people trying to reach the UK remains critical, complex and problematic. The deteriorating weather and winter seas may not be enough to deter vulnerable desperate people from stepping into small boats to risk crossing the Channel to reach the UK.

Please pray for God’s help for all people thinking about trying to cross the Channel and risking their lives. Pray that there will be no more tragedies in the Channel and that no more lives will be lost at sea. Pray for a more compassionate and constructive attitude towards migrants from those who have power and influence to improve their situation.

There was news this week that the Hagia Sofia, the jewel of Byzantine architecture in Istanbul, is to be turned back into a mosque after 85 years as a carefully non-religious museum. Of course the Hagia Sofia, originally the great cathedral of Eastern Christianity, has been a mosque before. The building’s history mirrors the eclectic past of the city of Istanbul itself – an ancient city where east meets west across the Bosphorus, occupied successively by Greeks and Romans, known as Byzantium, renamed Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine in 330, fallen to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, declining in importance over the centuries, so that in 1923 when the modern state of Turkey was formed, it lost its status as a capital city to Ankara. Since 1930 the city has been known by the Turkish name of Istanbul.

The Hagia Sofia, meaning “church of the Holy Wisdom”, is an architectural marvel built by the Emperor Justinian in the 6th Century on the foundations of two earlier churches. The vast interior space was designed to portray “an unearthly mirror of the heavens” (Eyewitness Travel Guide to Turkey) and is truly awe inspiring. The upper walls were once covered entirely in gold Byzantine mosaics and intriguing remnants of these remain, depicting Christ, saints, Mary the mother of Jesus, atchangels, emperors and six-winged seraphim. But the great dome itself is decorated with Koranic verses and 8 massive round wooden plaques in the nave show calligraphic inscriptions of the names of Allah, the Prophet Mohammed, the first four Muslim Caliphs and two of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandsons.

This magnificent church was converted into a mosque by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed in 1453 and the golden mosaics of Justinian and his Empress Theodora, the Virgin Mary and the painted seraphim were covered up for centuries. When Kemal Mustafa Ataturk founded modern Turkey he wanted to turn the nation towards the West and away from strict Islamic rules. So he imposed secularism on the state and Hagia Sofia became a museum. The Christian decor was uncovered and for 85 years visitors to this imposing building have been able to view Islamic and Christian art side by side in this wonderful setting.

Now once again Turkey is seeing change, in a determined swing back towards a stricter Islamic culture, and the current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decreed that the Hagia Sofia become a mosque once again. The Christian images will be covered up during prayer times. Women will be expected to wear headscarves.

On Friday July 24th the newly designated msoque was closed to visitors. Soon Islamic prayer will be heard under the soaring arches of the nave. Some Turkish people deplore the abandonment of the former secular status of this iconic building. Supporters of the President and Turkish Muslims are pleased that the Hagia Sofia will be a thriving centre of Islamic worship once again. Some Turkish Christians see this as an attack on their faith.

Visual symbols of the Islamic and Christian faiths and wonderful Islamic and Christian art have been present together in the Hagia Sofia for almost 600 years. Like the city itself, the great cathedral and its four added minarets stand as a monument to the ever changing world in which we live, a world where faiths and people of different faiths should be able to co exist in respectful peace. I hope Christians and every person of faith or no faith will still be able to visit the Hagia Sofia. Not just to be impressed by its matchless architectural beauty but to pause and recognise and to drink in the atmosphere of mystic divinity and religious harmony. The presence of both God and Allah is embedded in its foundations through centuries of prayer and worship and floats unseen but undeniable from its walls, for Hagia Sofia was dedicated in honour of the “holy wisdom” whose divine power and might transcends any human action and will forever outlast human history.

Photo Mark Hargreaves Original text Claire Hargreaves July 2020