A partnership between the city of Portland, Oregon and evangelical churches has led to thousands of volunteers completing hundreds of community service projects focused on schools, hunger, homelessness, health, poverty, and the environment.
Humanitarian
October 16, 2009: Season of Service
October 9, 2009: Father Damien’s Legacy
On October 11, the 19th-century missionary priest Father Damien will be canonized in Rome and remembered for dedicating his life to individuals with leprosy, a disease that still afflicts more than 250,000 people a year.
August 14, 2009: Spafford Children’s Center
Located in Jerusalem's Old City near the Damascus Gate, this children's charity traces its roots to 19th-century American evangelicals Horatio and Anna Spafford. Together they established a philanthropic and utopian Christian community that was known as the American Colony.
July 3, 2009: Aravind Eye Hospital
Patients at this hospital in Madurai, India are among the world's poorest people. It was founded by a pioneering eye surgeon who was a disciple of the spiritual teacher Sri Aurobindo, and its business success and social mission have long made it a model in public health textbooks.
Rami Elhanan and Mazen Faraj are members of the Parents Circle-Families Forum, a grassroots group that unites bereaved Israelis and Palestinians who have lost immediate family memers to the Middle East conflict. Together they promote a message of dialogue, reconciliation, and peace.
Burcu Munyas: Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
Burcu Munyas, program manager for Catholic Relief Services, discusses the difficulties her agency faces trying to get food and other relief supplies to desperate people in Gaza.
Eliyahu McLean: Building Interfaith Relationships
Eliyahu McLean of Jerusalem Peacemakers helps organize a movement called the Abrahamic Reunion, which tries to build friendships among Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
Elana Rozenman: Trust is Difficult
Elana Rozenman, executive director of a grassroots group called Trust-Emun, is also part of the Abrahamic Reunion movement. She says there are many challenges to building trust, but peace cannot come without it.
Bishop Munib Younan: Seeing God in the Other
Munib Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and one of the most prominent Palestinian Christian leaders in the region, talks about theological solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
She is a Loreto Sister who has transformed the lives of thousands of Kolkata children at a middle-class parochial school where the students have become advocates for social change.















