Almost five million Syrians are now refugees.
The Evangelical Community Church looked at ways to help in the Syrian refugee crisis and similar global issues with a mobile van experience over the weekend.
Bob Whitaker, the senior pastor at ECC, said his church reached out to World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, for help getting parish members to “lift their eyes” using their mobile van tour.
The crisis is described through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy named Ali living in a refugee camp in Lebanon.
“It’s one thing to see a news story on TV,” Whitaker said. “It’s another to see it in front of you.”
According to the World Vision website, 4.6 million Syrians are refugees, many of whom live in countries surrounding Syria.
About 6.6 million have been displaced within Syria, according to World Vision.
“We can all become introverted and introspected,” Whitaker said. “I think it’s good for us to lift our eyes and be aware of what’s going on in other parts of the world.”
The blue and orange World Vision van parked outside ECC on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as parishioners and Bloomington residents moved through the audio-visual tour.
ECC’s mission focus for April is ministry to those who are impoverished, Whitaker said, which fits the World Vision Experience well.
The experiences enumerated in the World Vision Experience weren’t new to Whitaker, as he’s traveled to places with similar problems, he said.
However, the contemporary nature of the Syrian Refugee Crisis caught his interest as “a very gripping story, the way in which children are marred for life,” he said.
The audio tour clearly supported aiding refugees in other countries.
Whitaker said Christian agencies can actually do relief work apart from and beyond that of government agencies and should take advantage of opportunities to do so.
“When the church does its best work, it’s not political,” he said. “It transcends politics, it transcends culture. It is the heart of love.”
Katie McKenzie, a tour representative with World Vision, walked tour participants through the lobby of ECC afterward to look through opportunities to sponsor World Vision children and answer questions.
World Vision embeds in different areas in the world and builds infrastructure in communities that should improve the overall well-being over time, McKenzie said, until World Vision can withdraw without jarring.
McKenzie said that depending on the openness of the country, World Vision may not share the Christian faith at all if doing so will impede the relief work.
“If we’re in an open country, being that we’re a Christian organization, that is integral to our service,” she said. “At the end of the day, we’re called to serve everyone — whether that’s in word or deed, we’re going to do that.”
World Vision supplies food and water, as well as access to child-safe spaces where young people can go for education, especially if their own progress has been impeded by war.
“They can be on-track with the curriculum, eventually, instead of behind from the war,” McKenzie said.
The child-safe spaces in refugee camps also offer art therapy and emotional therapy to promote mental and emotional health, she said.
The 20-minute tour of the mobile van paired photos from Bangladesh, Lebanon and Uganda with audio detailing civilian lives and circumstances before and after relief from World Vision.
As ECC in Bloomington has connections to the Dominican Republic, McKenzie said the sponsorships available over the weekend focused there.
Sponsoring a child in the Dominican Republic or elsewhere costs $39 per month, and sponsoring a refugee child is $29 per month, which goes toward resources that will benefit the community at large, McKenzie said.
Whitaker said some individuals in the church chose to sponsor children, but his goal for the parish was to inspire them.
At the end of the audio-visual tour, the World Vision Experience asks participants to write a step they can take to help on an index card and attach it to a wall in the van next to a cross.
Some of the index cards pledged to sponsor a child. Others held prayers for the safety of children all over the world and for borderless compassion and care.
Following current events can create a feeling of anger or hopelessness, Whitaker said.
He said he hoped the World Vision Experience would help cure that at ECC.
“If that’s what you’re looking at, you’re going to be overwhelmed with negativity and helplessness,” he said. “The truth is, great things are happening because people love God and are willing to share that love with the world.”
