Called to a ministry of reconciliation




All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.  - II Corinthians 5:18

Through alternative service workers in the Pax program, MCC began working in Nepal as part of the United Mission to Nepal more than 60 years ago.



When the earthquake struck Nepal five years ago, MCC was prepared to help. Our Nepal team had longstanding partnerships with local organizations. Being on the ground meant we were able to help provide emergency relief quickly, with the generous support of our constituency.

And we are still there. In the village of Nallu, in southern Lalitpur District, where I visited, 200 families are rebuilding their home thanks to the housing support they received from MCC.

In 2020, our centennial year, our scripture theme is from II Corinthians 5. God reconciled us to himself through Christ, God gave us the ministry of reconciliation.



From the early Pax workers to emergency and long-term earthquake response and rebuilding, to ongoing projects with partners in Nepal today, a ministry of reconciliation aptly describes MCC’s work.

In Biratnagar, in southeast Nepal, MCC is partnering with the BIC Welfare Society to train teachers with a child-friendly curriculum, to help farmers increase their crop yield and to provide vocational training for students.



I met one young woman who received vocational training to be a mid-wife. At age 24, she has already delivered more than 100 babies. She is the first person in her family to be employed away from her family’s farmland and she has already help two other family members pay for their education.

In Kathmandu, MCC is working with our partner KOSHISH to rescue and rehabilitate women suffering from mental illness to heal and reintegrate into their communities.

MCC is also working with partner Sanjal to empower young adults to address priority challenges they have identified in their own communities, like suicide, drug abuse and child marriages.

In 2020, as MCC celebrates its centennial, this is our work together. Through Christ, we are called to this ministry of reconciliation – yesterday, today and for another 100 years.

Ron Byler is executive director of MCC U.S.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They welcomed us

Image
One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25) She was addicted to drugs for 20 years. She was in prison and her family broke apart. Her child was in an orphanage and her husband died. Because of her substance abuse, she eventually lost her one arm below her elbow. She saw no way out. She had hit the very bottom. When she came to know God, Natalia says everything changed. She found she had a deep desire to help people like herself and she discovered that her life experiences helped her understand others. “I remember what God did in my life and I have hope that God can touch other peoples’ lives and give them new life, too,” Natalia tells me. In Nikopol, Ukraine, she and Olga and Valodya, both of whom have similar stories to tell of their own, began New Life Charitable Fund a half dozen years ago to help people in prison, or who have drug or alcohol addictions, are HIV positive, homeless or for some other reason need a helping hand. Ukraine has ...
Read more

God multiplies our efforts

Image
Sister Zita at the La Posada shelter with baby Emmanuel and members of our border learning tour. Photo courtesy of Janae Rempel The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. – I Kings 17:14 Ana Hinojosa remembers growing up on the Texas-Mexico border near Brownsville in the late 80s. Her family’s house was a mile from the border wall and she remembers the extended family gatherings in her back yard. Ana, an MCC immigration staff person, says border patrol agents would rest in the shade of the trees near the front of her house and, in the same day, it would be possible for a family from Mexico to knock on her front door to ask for food or directions. Her family turned no one away. Life on the border can look quite different today. When we enter the Catholic Charities respite center in McAllen, Texas, it is startling to see the contrast from the serenity of the neighborhood outside to the chaos inside. Cesar Matta tells us that, today, the cente...
Read more

A river of love

Image
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. – Matthew 25:40 “We are happy you are here to see this with your own eyes,” the leader of the Islamic Charities organization in Deir Attieh, Syria tells us, a group of MCC people visiting partner organizations in Syria. “We can’t express enough our heartfelt thanks to you.” Islamic Charities works with 3,000 at risk families affected by the war in the region and relies heavily on the work of volunteers. MCC provides food boxes to Islamic Charities as part of our humanitarian assistance in Syria. When I visit five families who received these food boxes, I recall the heartfelt thanks but feel mostly heart broken.    We visit two families living in a partially constructed apartment complex that stalled when the war began. The first family lives in a small two-room apartment, the mother and her five children and the woman’s father. Her husband is serving in the army. The second family inclu...
Read more