Ambassador of love

AN AMBASSADOR OF LOVE

Easter Sunday, 21 April 2019. Just before 9am at least six blasts rocked Sri Lanka, killing 259 people and injuring more than 500. Covid-19 is not the first crisis faced by CMS people in mission. Heather Ramsey, church relations team manager at Church Mission Society, tells us about the life-changing work of local partner Nevedita Jeevabalan in Sri Lanka.

On that tragic Easter morning, suicide bombers had targeted Christian churches and luxury hotels. Any semblance of peace achieved after the 26-year civil war ended in 2009 was destroyed. And at least 45 of the victims were children.

CMS local partner Nevedita and her team were immediately called on to support victims and their families. It was a painful diversion from their already heartbreaking day job, caring for young victims of trauma of a very different kind.

A mental health specialist, Nevedita manages ESCAPE (Eradicating Sexual Child Abuse, Prostitution and Exploitation), a programme of advocacy, intervention and rehabilitation for children traumatised through sexual abuse and exploitation. ESCAPE is part of the Lanka Evangelical Alliance Development Service (LEADS), one of CMS’s key partner organisations in South Asia, where Nevedita has worked since 2001. This meant Nevedita and her team were ideal people to turn to in a crisis.

When I met Nevedita at a conference in South East Asia in 2017, I was struck by her quick smile and sparkling eyes. But she speaks about her work with an authority that comes from honed expertise and hard experience. Her passion, rooted in her love for God, is to see broken children find lasting freedom and healing: “My mission is to show God’s love to children who have been through trauma and abuse. Most children who are referred for assistance have been abused, abandoned at a young age and been through various traumatic situations. All through their lives they may never have had a loving, trustworthy adult. Being an ambassador of God’s love for such children is the greatest difference I would like to make in their lives.”

THE NEED IS GREAT

And the need is great, almost overwhelming. It’s only in the last two decades, as taboos have begun to disintegrate, that the prevalence of child sexual exploitation in Sri Lanka and across the world has come to light. A conservative estimate, says LEADS, would indicate that approximately 100 children in Sri Lanka are sexually exploited or abused in a single day. In the capital city, Colombo, it is estimated that one in every three children lives in a violent and abusive home.

Nevedita’s mission to show God’s love to children who have suffered unspeakably is worked out in a number of ways. First, her child protection team provides residential counselling to young victims. Nevedita says, “we want to be there for a child who is hurting and support them and their family through that painful time”. They also work on prevention by speaking to children in schools and designing materials to educate children and adults in communities beyond the city. They want to help children understand what appropriate and inappropriate touch is, or alert adults to changes in a child’s behaviour that might indicate they are in trouble. They want to help children keep themselves safe.

Another priority is government advocacy, lobbying on behalf of abused kids and for more safe residential care. Although the government in Sri Lanka is increasingly aware of the extent of child abuse and is putting laws in place to combat the problem, there is still a lack of capacity to provide sufficient safe houses for affected children and families.

Most of the children referred to Nevedita and her team have been physically, emotionally or sexually abused by someone they know – and many by someone to

MON – ARGENTINA

Some local police have been making things difficult for indigenous communities who depend on fish from the river and honey from the forest. Pray for local partners Mateo Alto and Crisanto Rojas who act as intermediaries between their culture and the dominant surrounding culture.

TUES – BRAZIL

Rosie and Stu Bayford, working with atrisk girls in one of ReVive’s safe houses (but living elsewhere) have continued their work from afar. Pray for creativity and fresh ideas for Rosie and Stu and for the girls to know the joy of the Lord even during strange times.

WEDS – PERU

A church pastor, local partner Anderson Sanchez, wrote last year that he expected 2020 to be a time of strengthening the church’s ministries, encouraging more Bible studies in homes and winning church members’ families for Christ. Pray that his church is able to grow in their faith and in number.

THURS – GUATEMALA

Please pray for Mark and Rosalie Balfour, for wisdom to know how to practise pastoral care for workers at Street Kids Direct and other frontline urban ministries. Pray in turn for those working with Street Kids Direct; for them to know how to support the most vulnerable people at this time.

FRI – URUGUAY

9 Please pray for strength, encouragement and wisdom for local partner Mechi Tarragona as she seeks to train church members and leaders and build church community. Pray for the church’s message to be made clearer and more audible by the difficult situation the country is facing.

whom they are related. A child’s trust is violated and their sense of safety is shattered. In many cases, when the abuse comes to light, a child is immediately placed in an institution, away from parental custody, and is often referred for psychological intervention because of behavioural problems caused by trauma and separation. Institutionalised, away from their community, it often feels like the child is being punished again.

Nevedita’s vision is for at least one safe home for children and families in every province (of which there are nine), to ensure that sending children to an institution would be the last resort. LEADS have three homes in different locations across the country, one of which is managed in partnership with the state.

HOPE ON THE GROUND

One mother came to LEADS in desperation, seeking help for herself and her three children. Her eldest daughter, aged nine, had been abused by her father for some time and kept silent by his threats of punishment.

The child kept silent, terrified of the consequences of sharing her shame, even with her mother – until she realised he was abusing her four-year-old sister too. With all the courage she could muster, she opened up to her mother and the awful truth spilled out. Her mother immediately took the girls and their seven-year-old brother out of the home, well away from her husband’s reach, and walked straight to the nearest police station. She realised she was leaving everything behind; she had no money, no job, no security and she needed to find a place of protection for herself and her children.

After undergoing medical procedures, the children were separated from their mother by government officials and sent to a Child Development Centre (the kind of institution LEADS sees as a place of absolute last resort). But this mother was determined her children should stay with her.

The family were referred to ESCAPE for counselling initially, but the team also began advocating on their behalf, to make sure the courts understood the children needed to stay with their mother. They needed to convince government officials and provide support to the mother. The entire LEADS team set to work. They found a new school for the children and day care places to allow the kids to be cared for outside of school hours while their mother was working. They found the family a place to live, gathered together the basic items that would make it a home and the mother found a job to provide for herself and the children. It was a long journey, but finally, with the support of the team at LEADS, the mother and her three children whose lives had been torn apart by abuse were able to begin rebuilding their lives together.

HOPE INTERRUPTED

The day job for the child protection team is hard, physically draining and emotionally costly, but its value is almost beyond measure. And all of it was interrupted by a series of explosions on Easter Sunday 2019 that propelled the entire country into a new and familiar chaos.

For the first two months after the bombing, Nevedita and her team focused all their attention on attending to the aftermath. They spent time listening and talking to victims and their families. They dealt with practical needs, finding necessary medicines or helping people who were confused, frightened and traumatised find their way around overstretched hospitals. They provided play equipment for children, and through playing together were able to give the kids much needed emotional support.

One victim of the attack was a 10-year-old boy, whom the team met at the hospital. His mother had died in the bomb attack and his father was seriously injured. Such were the boy’s injuries that initially he couldn’t be told his mother had died. He suffered

Photos: Located on the outskirts of Colombo, Kedella is one of LEADS’s three therapeutic rehabilitation centres for traumatised children and young people. The centre has space for up to eight girls and eight boys. Survivors live in community, usually for about three months, and during that time they receive the equivalent of home schooling as well as intensive counselling and psychotherapy. The team offer lifechanging care and support to traumatised children.

terrible burns, meaning he would have to wear a mask over his face for six–eight months. He couldn’t go to school, play outside or simply enjoy the sunshine. Life and hope seemed shattered. For many weeks Nevedita worked with him, helping him adjust to an impossible new normal.

And the team were far from immune to the horror. As experienced as they are in dealing with trauma, the bomb triggered memories of war for them just as for many others, and increased anxiety in carrying out even the simple tasks of life. In September, 110 staff participated in a debrief programme to help them reflect and process the experience, funded by a grant from CMS.

A YEAR ON…

A year on, Sri Lanka is recovering. The team have moved past the impact of the bomb. Nevedita says, their “resilience is high because of the war”. LEADS’s work with schools is almost done and the Catholic church have taken responsibility for continuing the work with affected families through local parishes.

The boy was placed permanently with his mother’s sister, who cares for him as if he were her own. Happily, his father is now well enough to take care of him and his little brother at weekends. The boy still has to safeguard his sensitive skin and hasn’t yet talked much about his mother. These are still early days, but the family is fortunate, says Nevedita – they have a good support system. That, as she knows only too well, is a blessing many other families do not have.

Back on the frontline, Nevedita continues to be busy, overseeing the work with traumatised children, with an increased focus on training and caring for staff who are looking after children. She says it’s time to “pass on experience and build capacity, so that the work will be more effective”. Often, when faced with the incredible challenges of her work, she recalls Isaiah 58:6 to express the response of her heart. “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” She says, with a smile, “Some days are stressful, but most days I don’t know what else I’d do.”

ACT

Could you help CMS people in mission respond to the needs of those around them?

Go to churchmissionsociety.org/support

WEEKEND FOCUS

A PLACE OF PRESSING Saturday–Sunday 13–14 June

BY LEVI SANTANA, WHO, WITH HIS WIFE DEBORA, HELPS PEOPLE IN POVERTY AS WELL AS TEACHING AND EQUIPPING THE LOCAL CHURCH FOR MISSION IN GOIANIA, BRAZIL

During this pandemic which threatens not only human life, but also the economic and political systems we have devised, our expectations of a happy, healthy and affluent life are rapidly vanishing. In times like these, it can be difficult to pray, or to see what prayer will actually achieve.

But in Jesus’ darkest moment, in Gethsemane, he prays. The word Gethsemane is believed to mean “oil press”. The place where olives were brought, stacked up and pressed by a heavy beam. The more pressure, the more oil. Do not the current times feel like we have all been stacked together and placed under a huge beam?

The Garden of Pressing places before Jesus a hard choice: Will he submit to the will of the Father or do something else? The Garden of Pressing shatters our expectations of a glorious king and reveals the anointing of the Anointed One is forged under pressure. The Garden of Pressing, the Holy Cross and the invitation to submission, is not what our minds perceive as liberation.

While we are threatened by a worldwide pandemic, let’s choose Jesus’ stance. It may require that we bend our knees, though.

1 1 Pray for Debora and Levi: for eyes to see God’s hand in the difficult situations they are facing, and the grace to bend their knees.

PRAY

“WEEPING MAY STAY FOR THE NIGHT, BUT REJOICING COMES IN THE MORNING.”

Thank you for giving to our Lent appeal – so far you have given over £72,000 to support underfunded mission partners in the Middle East and North Africa. Because of your generosity, weeping is becoming rejoicing.

Here are a few snapshots of what God is already doing, and what we are looking forward to seeing God do, in the Middle East and North Africa:

NORTH AFRICA

One of our mission partners writes: “We met a man called G whose first priority in life was his work. He worked 14 hours a day and didn’t care much for a relationship with God. Surprisingly, he came to one of our outreach events and was convicted by the Holy Spirit. He and his wife prayed and he made a decision to put Jesus first. G now has new priorities in his life. Pray that God will continue to draw G and his family closer to him.” One of our newest mission partner couples is going to North Africa to support secret believers in places where people aren’t allowed to follow Jesus. This couple will be working to support and strengthen these believers and spread the gospel in new places. Good live and work among refugees who have left dire situations in hopes of a better future. In Phil and Sylvie’s words, many of them have “gambled everything and lost”. These refugees often wait years for their bright future to materialise; sometimes it never does. In the meantime, they need to put food on the

MIDDLE EAST

In the slums of Beirut, Lebanon, Phil and Sylvie

table and provide some sort of education for their children. During this waiting, some of them meet Jesus through people like Phil and Sylvie; they find a light that comes close and gives them courage and comfort.

Thanks to your generosity, mission partner “Alex”, a lawyer is getting stuck in and starting work. He knows that it might sometimes be difficult to see that his work is making a difference to the big picture. But to those Christians he is freeing from imprisonment and those

churches he is fighting to keep open, his work will make the world of difference.

Thank you for being a part of what God is doing in the Middle East and North Africa. You are making a real difference.

MON – SOUTH EAST ASIA

A local partner was able to share Jesus with his community at Christmas through visiting families in their homes, giving gifts and telling them the good news. Now, with many facing difficult times and looking for answers, pray for the seeds sown at Christmastime to bear fruit.

TUES – PHILIPPINES

Eric and Sandra Read, equipping churches in holistic mission, write, “After lockdown, we are all going to find ourselves in a different world. Please join us in praying for wisdom, inspiration and God’s guidance as to how we respond to this in our work with churches and communities.”

WEDS – SOUTH EAST ASIA

Mission partners doing prison ministry write that prison conditions are so bad that prisoners with chronic health conditions are being failed and even dying due to a lack of healthcare. Please pray for strength, encouragement and wisdom as our mission partners do what they can.

THURS – THAILAND

Local partner Helen Avadiar works in Chiang Mai with Kingdom Multiplication Movement (KMM). Pray for her to be able to continue her work of counselling and sharing the love of Christ with survivors of human trafficking in new and creative ways during lockdown and beyond.

FRI – TAIWAN

Pray for Asia-CMS as they seek to help their partners on the ground respond to the needs of the most marginalised and vulnerable people affected by the coronavirus crisis in some of the poorest parts of Asia.