On January 2, 2005, CEDAR Fund unites with Church Renewal Movement, Hong Kong Association of Christian Missions and Hong Kong Fellowship of Evangelical Students and Cumberland Presbyterian Church to host a prayer and sharing meeting. Around 250 people attended to prayer for the Asia Tsunami disaster relief work. To express the prayer need for these local relief works, the organizations invited the Hong Kong health and safety department chair and local doctors as well as Cumberland Presbyterian Church Interim Pastor to share message.
One of the doctors has participated in Sri Lanka’s Medical Mission Project. He shares, “Christian Organization Relief motive and posture should be made very clear, we shouldn’t let the victims think that the motive of helping them is because we’re trying to change their faith.”
He explains saying, “Some victims think that Christians help others in order to buy their hearts, so they don’t accept help from Christian Relief Organizations. Some countries don’t like Christians, for example, Sri Lanka is a Buddhist nation, where the locals do not like Christians spreading the gospel, so there has been incidents in the past where Christian fellowship gathering places were set on fire, and some even want the government to prohibit faith conversion.
Dr. Mo advises churches to pray for the rescue relief workers of the Bible Association. Bible Association has sent its Sri Lanka members to head towards the disaster area to participate in rescue work. Some of them are the victims of the disaster, who have lost their homes and loved ones, but they don’t care for themselves instead they want to face the hardships with the other victims. Dr Mo says, “They play the role of shepherds, rescuers, and counselors. There must be great pressure, so they need our prayer support.”
Another doctor who is invited to speak on behalf of the need to pray is Dr. Chen. He used to participate in Afghan’s reconstruction work after its disaster. He says, “Compared to the one-time material support, the care given after the disaster is much more important. They don’t change just because we give them lots of money. Only when they see the love of the rescue workers will they believe in Jesus. To offer up the heart of man is much greater than money.”
In the sermon, Pastor Shui instructs the congregation that has gathered how to pray. He believes that the first thing one should do is to pray for ourselves, “We should pray to understand the will of God and to respond to that. We should not only donate money, but we should always keep the victims of this disaster in our lives, hope that our lifestyle would have some sort of change, and that there would be new mission leadership, and care for the country that we have never cared for in the past, Sri Lanka.
Lastly, the prayer meeting ended with representatives from each organization leading the closing prayer. The information of this sharing meeting will be posted on the Renewal Movement’s website in this week.
