When you or I meet a refugee here in Canada, we are seeing a person who has gone through a long and often harrowing journey. The person before our eyes has fled a hostile homeland. Assault, torture or death threats might have been part of the picture; so, too, a life in a squalid refugee camp for months or years; loss of contact with family members who have become separated, lost, fallen sick or been killed; and the lengthy and confusing application process granting them refugee status and entry into Canada.

The refugee arrives in an alien country with a small support network, tired and often still very afraid. Emotional scars run deep. It is this personal world of darkness to which the volunteers and donors of CLWR bring the light of compassion and care.

In this issue of Partnership, we bring you stories of refugees that you have helped to welcome into Canada, and to whom you have given new hope for a life of relative peace and safety. You’ll learn about our two refugee offices in Vancouver and Toronto, and about the Karen (Burmese) refugees that will be walking through those doors in 2007.

Photo: Sixty-eight years after being established, cement block construction has replaced tents at the Al-Amari refugee camp located south of the city of Ramallah in the West Bank. Al-Amari is home to approximately 9,000 of the estimated 1.2 million Palestinian refugees displaced from within Israel and still living in camps in Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Photo: Daranne Mills

The Lutheran World Federation’s Department for World Service (LWF-DWS) is CLWR’s primary implementing partner through which we are engaged in programming across the globe.

Refugee programs are one of the primary activities for LWF-DWS. Did you know the agency cares directly for nearly 300,000 refugees on a daily basis? The LWF is one of the largest partners of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The LWF has supported refugees since the 1940s and is directly connected to the origins of CLWR.

This October, CLWR hosts Global Encounter—Africa 2007. Participants will get to observe the refugee work of CLWR and LWF in Africa. Under the dual themes of refugees and HIV/AIDS, visits will be made in Kenya, with a chance to travel to Mozambique, Uganda or Rwanda.

You can help refugees in other ways besides a cash contribution. Have you or your congregation considered sponsoring a refugee? We urgently need communities to step forward and receive Karen refugees. Sponsorship is not as daunting as it may sound, and we are here to help you. Please, call our Vancouver office (1.888.588.6686) or Toronto office (1.888.255.0150) to find out more.

CLWR operates two refugee offices, one in Toronto and one in Vancouver. These specialized offices receive sponsorship requests from Lutheran churches, from Canadians who have family members in peril overseas, and also from the Government of Canada which approves individuals or groups for refugee status. In all cases, CLWR acts as the Sponsorship Agreement Holder, taking responsibility for the refugees upon their arrival.

The work at these offices is labour-intensive and includes conducting family and refugee interviews, coordinating applications and documentation, communicating with government offices, including Canadian visa offices abroad, welcoming the newcomers and ensuring a support system is in place. Staff may be required to work with an individual refugee case for years before the person is accepted and arrives.

Cobbled together along the western border of Thailand are nine refugee camps. They are home for the ethnic Karen (pronounced kah-ren), people who have fled neighbouring Burma. Many crossed the border in 1995 when the Burmese government launched a major attack against the Karen National Union (KNU). The KNU has been fighting for independence for almost 60 years, making it the longest war of independence in the world. One legacy of this armed struggle is Karen living for decades in the camps, their children born into life as refugees.

Mae La Oon refugee camp has the distinction of being the most remote and most difficult of the nine camps for aid workers to reach. Mae La Oon is overcrowded; houses are built on steep hillsides where landslides strike; water and sanitation are poor.

It is from this camp that 810 Karen refugees have been accepted for resettlement by the Canadian government. CLWR is caring for some of them. “We anticipate sponsoring half a dozen Karen refugee families this year,” says Fikre Tsehai, CLWR program manager for refugees.

Last November, a family of eight Karen refugees arrived in a frigid Alberta after an exhausting journey from Mae La Oon refugee camp in Thailand. They were received by Calvary Lutheran Church in Edmonton. Having survived the trip and then a Canadian winter, the family is doing well.

“The kids are in school. They take a school bus and are happy,” says Bill Beach, the chair of Calvary’s refugee committee. Eisech, one of the young Karen boys, is now in grade six and is excited about his upcoming ESL camp. With her English coming along steadily, Eisech’s mother, Hser Mu Paw, spends time Mondays with the church’s quilting group. It’s the same group that supplied Hser Mu Paw’s family with their own quilts.

Meanwhile Saw Gay, the father, is anticipating work installing drywall for another Karen who runs a business. He will have to take English as an evening class to accommodate the job. But Bill says Saw Gay is eager to become an independent English speaker.

“Usually Saw Gay and I communicate through one of his sons,” Bill says. “But when I asked him when he was getting his eyeglasses, he insisted on answering the question himself. He proudly replied, ‘In Saskatchewan!’” While the answer didn’t make too much sense at first, Bill was impressed at how clearly Saw Gay could pronounce the province’s name.

“What he meant by that was that he was going to get his glasses when his interpreter returned from Saskatchewan,” Bill chuckles good-naturedly.

CLWR has helped hundreds of refugees over the years. Here you’ll meet two families: a newly arrived Ethiopian family and an established Vietnamese family that successfully resettled in Canada almost three decades ago.

Like most refugees, Yusuf Abdulahi Ibrahim didn’t want to leave his homeland; he was forced from it by a situation that threatened his very life. When he fled from Ethiopia to Nairobi, Kenya, in 1999, he was escaping a history of torture and persecution.

In the early 90s Yusuf was a clothing designer and tailor, operating his own business in Ethiopia. It was August 1992 when he was abducted from his home and accused of supporting the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a pressure group fighting the Ethiopian government. Yusuf says he was detained for seven months and brutally tortured. As is often the case with refugees, Yusuf’s ethnicity (himself an Oromo) was a factor in his persecution. He was finally released when community elders paid “bond money.”

Again in 1998, he was taken from his home by the military in the middle of the night and accused of providing food to an OLF member. Moved to an unofficial detention camp, he was held and tortured for nine months. When he was finally released, Yusuf was told to report weekly to a security office. He returned home to find his house and property had been confiscated by the military.

Yusuf persevered and restarted his clothing business. It only took a few months for things to fall back into chaos, however. In February 1999, while away from home, Yusuf had his house and business ransacked again by the military. Word of the situation got to him through his younger brother before Yusuf returned, and he decided it was simply too dangerous to go home. He left his friends, family, business and possessions behind and fled by foot across the Kenyan border under cover of darkness. From there he caught a ride on a cattle truck into Nairobi.

Meanwhile, back in Toronto, Yusuf’s sister, Hindia Ibrahim, contacted CLWR asking for help. Hindia and her husband have been Canadian citizens for nearly two decades and were praying that Yusuf could join them here to find peace and safety. Hindia pledged financial and social support for her brother, with CLWR responsible for making the official sponsorship request and facilitating the process. This arrangement is typical with many CLWR-sponsored refugees, who already have a support base in Canada and who rapidly become self-sufficient once here.

The sponsorship was submitted to the Canadian government in June 2003. Finally, in September 2005, Yusuf was interviewed and accepted. By that time he was not alone; in the six-and-a-half years living as a refugee in Nairobi he had not stopped living and had found a wife with whom he’d had a baby girl. After a few more delays, the family of three—Yusif, his wife Fatiya and their two-year-old daughter Sumeya landed safely in Toronto.

From the restaurant Pho Hung, one of his two successful restaurants in Toronto, Nguyen Dac Thoi reflects on his former life in Vietnam and his new life as a CLWR refugee in Canada 27 years ago.

“My children had no future in Vietnam,” Thoi says. “We escaped from Saigon around June 1980. My sister escaped at the same time, but she got [to Canada] five months ahead of us.”

When Vietnam was reunited under communism in the mid-70s after years of war, people like Thoi and his wife Nguyen Thi Rang faced trouble under the new government. Like millions of other Vietnamese, they experienced serious humanitarian and economic hardships. Their land was expropriated and their five children were prevented from going to school. Thoi had worked for the previous government, making him a target for further persecution.

As refugees to Canada, the family of seven were sponsored by Faith Lutheran Church in Brantford, Ontario. A member of Faith Lutheran and a strong supporter of refugees for the last three decades, Uwe Storjohanne recalls the Nguyens as the first of many families his congregation was to help.

“I think at that time there was a lot of publicity,” Uwe offers as a reason his congregation decided to sponsor. Indeed, Lutherans across Canada were hearing about the many Vietnamese who were fleeing by sea, earning the name Boat People.

Despite the language and culture barrier, the Nguyens thrived in Canada, with the help of Faith Lutheran. Uwe remembers that like many other refugees to come later on, the Nguyens didn’t require financial support for the entire first year, despite such a guarantee under the sponsorship agreement.

At the time, Thoi and Rang’s five children were between the ages of five and 17 years. Today the couple has nine children; their adult children have succeeded in university and in the family business.

It’s the kind of freedom and future that the Nguyens dreamed of for their children. And it’s the same gifts that Faith Lutheran continues giving to refugees, including their present refugee from Ethiopia, Rev. Kebede Dibaba.

Faith Lutheran is not only sponsoring the Lutheran pastor as a refugee, they also have him as an intern pastor. “After his formal internship he’ll go before the synod and will hopefully be placed on the church roster,” says Uwe.

Recent and established refugees alike often stay connected to the church community that sponsored them. Thoi hasn’t forgotten what Faith Lutheran did for him 27 years ago.

“On the anniversary of the opening, I give a special donation to the church,” he says over the din of his busy restaurant kitchen.

At their meeting on March 16 in Winnipeg, the National Church Council of the ELCIC affirmed their approval of a new agreement that defines the church’s relationship with CLWR. CLWR works on behalf of ELCIC in the areas of international development, refugee resettlement, alternative trade, shipment of donated goods to those in need, and awareness raising. CLWR and ELCIC also collaborate in placing volunteers overseas.

CLWR maintains a separate, complimentary agreement with Canada’s other major Lutheran church body, Lutheran Church–Canada. CLWR operates as the international relief and development arm for both national Lutheran bodies.

The plight of the world’s most impoverished was not much improved with the unveiling of the 2007 federal budget this spring. The budget fails to enhance Canada’s foreign aid spending, a key promise made by Stephen Harper during the last election.

The new budget adds $315 million to official development assistance for 2006/07, raising it to $4.7 billion. No new funding initiatives are identified for 2007/08, during which time assistance will drop to $4.5 billion—not even half of the United Nations target of 0.7 percent of Canada’s Gross National Income.

The board of CLWR approved new vision, mission and value statements at a March board meeting held in Winnipeg. The new statements come as CLWR continues to position itself as one of Canada’s leading relief and development agencies.

Robert Granke, executive director for CLWR, said: “These new statements represent a clear articulation of the planned long-term direction for CLWR, one which is intimately connected to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and Lutheran Church–Canada as a specialized agency, and at the same time an agency which will now move forward with a more public face and engagement of Canadians in support of our excellent field programs.”

To view the new statements, please visit www.clwr.org/OurFocus.

One year after CLWR celebrated its 60th anniversary, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is recognizing the same milestone in its own history. Both CLWR and the LWF were created out of the calling Lutherans felt to bring relief to those suffering the after-effects of the Second World War.

For decades, CLWR has been both a member and active partner in the LWF, utilizing the international Lutheran network to effectively administer emergency relief and long-term development projects. Today CLWR places great value on its strong relationship with the LWF country programs in Zambia, Mozambique and India. CLWR also recognizes the many relationships held with other country programs and the LWF staff over the years.

CLWR, in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada’s (ELCIC) Global Hunger and Development Appeal (GHDA), issued an appeal in late February for flood relief in central and northern Mozambique. Tropical Cyclone Favio struck Mozambique February 22 with winds of up to 230 km/h. The country was already struggling with severe flooding due to heavy rains. CLWR works actively in Mozambique.

Make a difference by donating online at www.clwr.org, calling 1.800.661.2597, or by mail to 1080 Kingsbury Avenue, Winnipeg MB R2P 1W5. ELCIC members are encouraged to donate through GHDA www.elcic.ca/ghda

Perhaps you’ve already helped to care for a refugee in your community, or have just recently become interested in the plight of the millions around the world who face being a refugee. Now, through an exclusive CLWR travel package, you have the chance to come face-to-face with refugees struggling to survive in a camp or to make their way back home.

CLWR and thirty travellers will have the experience of a lifetime this October 12-25 with Global Encounter 2007. Landing in Nairobi, Kenya, the group of 30 will break into four smaller units and spread out onto four distinct tours. Participants will explore Mozambique, Uganda, Rwanda or Kenya/Sudan before being reunited in Mombasa, Kenya.

The educational journey will highlight the struggle of refugees and the role that HIV/AIDS plays in peace and development work overseas. The Lutheran World Federation, the primary partner in development for CLWR, will host much of the group’s activities.

“This will be an enlightening trip, but also a challenging trip for many in our group, I expect,” says Robert Granke, executive director for CLWR. “The safety of our group will be of paramount concern, but the harsh realities of life in some of these places will not be glossed over.”

In Mozambique, the first of four groups will travel to the central province of Tete, where CLWR maintains community development projects. HIV/AIDS is a problem in this area and participants will see how CLWR helps fight this disease through education, testing and treatment.

In Uganda, the second group will travel to the south and north of the country, visiting an LWF camp for internally displaced people. They will meet Ugandans affected by violence, and see how the LWF is helping to improve their lives.

Rwanda is a familiar place to many as a name on the nightly newscast. The third group will encounter returning refugees and unravel the process of settling those refugees using an integrated approach. Food security, skills training, reconciliation, HIV/AIDS management and trauma counselling all play a role.

The final group will visit the LWF/UN Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where 85,000 Sudanese, Ethiopians and Somalis are forced to make their home. The LWF supplies food and water, delivers education and builds gender equity here. In southern Sudan the group will see how the LWF helps repatriate returning Sudanese. Training and trauma counselling are as important as food and supplies for the survival of these people.

Do you wish to be part of Global Encounter 2007? Space is limited, so contact CLWR today at 1.800.661.2597 or .

Gifts to CLWR in honour of special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations not only warm the heart of the recipient, but also bring smiles to the faces of those people whose lives are transformed by CLWR’s project work overseas. In lieu of printing names in our Partnership newsletter CLWR will acknowledge these special occasions with a celebratory card that shares the impact such gifts have on communities throughout the world.

E.J. Anderson, Ernest Anderson, Orval Ask, Gusta Bjerkseth, Janet Biernacki's mother, Robin Cadman, Carmen Cook, Gerda Czerednikow, Evelyn Dressler, Mary Edward, Joanne Flath, Audrey Fridfinnson, Roy Geisel, Elsie Gniewotta, Elton Gritzfeld, Gabriel Habermann, Rodney Hein, Lillian Heinze, Sadie Holpainen, Dr. Henry Horn, Helene Horne, Terry Janot, Sharon Jayner, Diane Johnson, Wilfred Johnson, Lillian Petersen Jones, Clarence Karr, Adolf & Frieda Kletke, Rev. Walter Lexvold, Ed Malkoske, Doreen Marcotte, Milton McLaughlin, Edith McMurray, Else Meyer, Margaret Miller (nee: Engel), Harald Moen, Julius Moen, David Ness, Gordon Ness, Gladys Osness, Olivia Robinson Pahl, Myrtle Pederson, Clarence Petersen, Astrid Peterson, Annie Rhymer, Frank Robinson, Bill Ronning, Tony Roth, Eldon Schrader, Olga Schweitzer, Roy Shpulak, Audre Stake, Irene Streberg, Leonard (Leo) Tibelius, Ken Ulmer, Alma Weissling, Irene Wolter

Available in time for Vacation Bible School or fall Sunday school, One Good Thing aims to help young people see how they can make a difference in a world filled with so many problems and possibilities by learning to share the love of God through simple acts of compassion. Ask your pastor about samples and accompanying DVD that were included in your current church mailing. Also visit www.clwr.org for supplementary material.

CLWR now offers you international volunteer opportunities. Visit www.clwr.org/IVS for an up-to-date list of volunteer posts.

The Canadian Citizenship Act comes into force; Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King receives the first citizenship certificate. Canada favours immigrants from traditional Commonwealth countries and the United States. The 50,000th displaced person to arrive under the International Refugee Organization plan becomes a Canadian citizen. She is 15 years old. The Citizenship Act and related regulations come into force, removing bias towards British immigrants. Citizenship is now a right, not a privilege. Half of all newcomers are now from Asia and the Middle East. A record 223,214 people become Canadian citizens, the highest number since statistics were kept. (Compared with 10,000 citizenships in 1950.) The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees awards the Nansen Medal to the people of Canada for their generosity towards refugees. This is unprecedented—all previous winners were individuals or groups. 60th anniversary of Canadian Citizenship Act.

On May 11-12 in Winnipeg a group of newly arrived refugees were attacked and robbed as they were making their way to a safe location for processing. Several of the refugees were abducted, after being physically intimidated.

One of the refugees who endured the ordeal said the rebels screamed obscenities. “They told us, ‘Lie down, don’t look at us! Can’t you hear me, what are you, stupid? Get up on your knees, what are you doing lying down like that, like an animal.’”

The refugees in this case were Manitoba youth who were taking part in a challenging simulation exercise, called In Exile—For a While. The event mimics a group of refugees seeking asylum at a refugee camp. The Winnipeg event was planned cooperatively by several agencies including The Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) and the Canadian Red Cross.

Through the event, participants share the experience of many refugees and gain awareness about a range of issues such as language barriers, rights abuses, stress situations, racism, health and safety.

“We have seen the power of the In Exile experience in the changed lives of participants,” says Dan Wiens, education coordinator for the CFGB. “Some have told us they made career decisions at least partially based on the impact of In Exile… becoming nurses, social workers and teachers so they can use these skills to help less advantaged people.”

About 15 committed volunteers are required to run the event. If you are interested in this program, please contact CLWR.

As the first cut of hay was being baled in the Fraser Valley, baling of a different sort was undertaken by a host of CLWR volunteers who made their way to Clearbrook, BC, on May 14 and 15. Every spring the BC baling committee gathers quilts, kits, baby bundles, hospital supplies and soap from congregations throughout the province to send overseas as part of the We Care program. While regular shipments from the CLWR warehouse in Winnipeg are usually shipped via an eastern port, the BC materials can be sent directly from Vancouver.

Approximately 60 men and women gathered to sort and pack We Care program items from over 35 congregations into boxes and bales. It was a flurry of activity as people dropped off items, folded quilts, checked kits for consistency, and arranged bales in the cargo container. There was much excitement in the air as participants shared stories relaying the labour of love stitched into the many quilts or how they came to be involved in the work of CLWR.

The 20-foot container bound for Tanzania contains 2,688 quilts, 1,099 baby bundles, 612 assorted kits, 36 kg (79 lb) of hospital supplies and 88 kg (193 lb) of soap. Supplies will be distributed among refugees living in camps in the Kibondo District, helping to improve hygiene and provide for personal needs.

Twice a year, the ELW of Messiah Lutheran Church, Camrose, Alberta, pack quilts and We Care kits to send to CLWR—one way they express their “compassion in action.” The women of Messiah and a small group of women from Kingman, Alberta, prepare the quilts and assemble the various kits. On April 22, with the ELW leading their annual Praise Offering Service, the quilts were displayed on the pews in the sanctuary. Also on display were five quilts being auctioned to raise money to assist CLWR with the cost of ocean freight, and samples of the hygiene, sewing, baby, personal, school and children’s kits the circles had assembled. A new project the ELW members have undertaken is the knitting and crocheting of pneumonia vests which CLWR sends in some of its medical shipments. Included in Messiah's spring shipment are 142 quilts and afghans, 112 assorted kits, 35 pneumonia vests, bandages and soap.