Photo by Adam Vogler
Ezekiel Cheever helps his daughter Emily, 8, place her hand-print in blue paint on a tent bound for the Darfur region of Sudan. The Cheevers are part of a group from First United Methodist Church, 823 Merchant, that is reading about the troubled region and decided to try to help.
Silhouettes and handprints of area children soon will be on their way to Darfur.
The children took turns standing around the perimeter of a tent Wednesday evening at the First United Methodist Church, while adults traced their outlines and showed their linked hands in a symbolic “around-the-world” theme.
The effort is a project that evolved from a recently formed joint study group of members of the church and Campus Ministries.
The group had decided to study a book, “Not on Our Watch,” by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast. It details the genocide and suffering currently happening in Darfur in western Sudan.
Coincidentally — or perhaps not coincidentally — an e-mail was sent out a few weeks ago, alerting churches to the crisis situation in Darfur and some ways in which church members could help by contributing through the “Tents of Hope” organization.
The local group chose to purchase large tents that can be used as classrooms, meeting rooms, or, if needed, as housing for the displaced families in Darfur.
One of the organizers in Emporia, Brian Muench, said that an estimated 400,000 people already have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes as a result of the fighting. The conflict seems to spring from several sources: oil, tribal disagreements and hatreds, and a basic desire to control, according to Muench and Kurt Cooper, pastor at Campus Ministries.
Muench said that the Sudanese government has given free reign to the Janjaweed tribe that gives them “permission to go in and massacre people in Darfur, permission to loot, kill.”
The Sudanese government, while denying that it underwrites the Janjaweed, provides air patrol for the tribe, Cooper said. Many suspect that the government is more deeply involved.
The men likened the situation in Darfur to that of Rwanda and Somalia, where troops dragged the bodies of American soldiers through the streets. Sending American soldiers to Darfur to help does not seem to be the answer, Cooper said.
“The American people don’t have much stomach for that, and I don’t blame them,” Cooper said.
The Tents of Hope project, however, gives people an opportunity to help.
“This has kind of become the finale to our class,” Muench said.
The church has purchased a 20-feet X 16-feet tent, tall enough for a man to stand in, to decorate and send to the refugees. Campus Ministries purchased a tent with half the square footage that will be painted by college students.
Each received a primer coat of beige-colored paint before the decorating began. The church’s youth themed tent will have rainbows made from the children’s handprints, in addition to the silhouettes.
Cooper explained the situation to the children’s classes that had come to the church Wednesday before the painting began.
“We care about people who’ve been displaced from their homes,” he told about 30 kids clustered around him, “and we care about what happens to them.”
The tents will be displayed outside the church building at Ninth Avenue and Merchant Street and at the Campus Ministries building at 15th Avenue and Merchant Street.
Both tents then will be sent to Washington, D.C., for display with others from across the country Nov. 7 through 9. Then all of the tents will be shipped from Baltimore to Liberia before being taken to Darfur.
The larger tent cost $1,000; the smaller tent cost $500. Smaller tents, intended for families, also were available.
“Plenty of groups bought smaller tents,” Cooper said. “They encouraged us to purchase the larger tents because they needed the classroom space.”
The tents are sturdy, the men said, with aluminum poles and heavy-duty canvas; they should be able to withstand the harsh climate in Darfur.
Individuals and groups that are not able to contribute tents may be interested in contributing solar stoves at a cost of approximately $20 each.
“There’s lots of ways to help,” Muench said.
The solar stoves provide a modicum of safety for females, who otherwise would have to leave camps to find wood for cooking fires.
“When women go to look for firewood, they’re at risk of them getting raped or killed,” Cooper said.
More information about ways to aid victims in Darfur is available at savedarfur.org and TentsofHope.org.
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Posted by kjc1967 (anonymous) on October 23, 2008 at 4:13 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Great piece! FYI - United Methodist Campus Ministry is located at the corner of 13th and Merchant. The Didde Catholic Student Center is located at 15th and Merchant.
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