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Tag: China

Whose Neighbours Do I Want to Become?

Written by: The Reverend Anders Chan Ming-chuen (Board Member of CEDAR, Associate Senior Pastor of Mongkok Baptist Church) The parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 is a well-known passage of scripture. An expert in the law asked Jesus to provide an objective definition for the word “neighbour”, but his real intention was to justify his xenophobic point of view – there were people whom he did not have the obligation to love (to him, “neighbour” probably only referred to other Jews). This reflected the sense of national superiority of the expert in the law and his moral values. Even though the Jews did not have their own country at the time, they still prided themselves in

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Saving One is One

Banner image: Our partner worker carried a 12-week-old embryo baby model to deliver the message of “priceless life” to women who were preparing for abortion in the hospital. Abortion, a bloody noun. According to the interpretation of Wikipedia, abortion, also known as miscarriage or induced abortion, is the ending of pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus before it can survive outside the uterus. Under the influence of one child policy, millions of women and mothers undergo abortion or sterilisation every year. The Chinese official report pointed out 13 million cases of abortion annually. When this announcement was still hovering around the ears, some US human rights organisations already felt unacceptable and claimed that the actual number is

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The Letter from CEDAR | March 2018

Greetings, Brothers and Sisters in Christ! It was rather cold in Hong Kong in early February. “Severe winter” and “high summer” are used to describe different seasons, and it is likewise applicable in international relief and development work. Governments and Non-government organisations (NGOs) are often key players in disaster relief and development work. To NGOs, the 80s and 90s of last century could be considered as the golden days. At that time, growth in geographic coverage as well as development theories and effectiveness had experienced a period of “high summer”. But, the situation has changed in recent years. Economic progress of some developing countries allow their governments to assume a more active role, and in turn, narrowing down

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Bringing Light to the Youths Living in Darkness

“Left-behind Children”, a term describing over 60 million children in China who stayed behind with their grandparents in rural areas while their parents are working in the cities. While not all left-behind children suffer from poverty as their parents work far away from home, they all suffer the lack of parental care and love, and bear emotional burdens due to this long-term void. CEDAR’s partner in Sichuan, Chengdu Fuyi Community Services Centre, began supporting youths in quake-affected communities through caring and training programmes after the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan. Two more earthquakes happened in Ya’an, Sichuan and Zhaotong, Yunnan in 2013 and 2014 respectively, leading to the expansion of our partner’s service to the youths in those

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She Saw the Beauty of Development

Interviewee: Alice Kwan (Former CEDAR Staff) Interviewed and edited by: Jojo Poon How far would you go for the poor? Would you visit the Guangdong industrial district alone to investigate sweatshop labour, or venture to Northwest China alone and live among the Hui people, or supervise earthquake rescue efforts while carrying a baby in your tummy and worrying about your husband’s safety who is responding at the frontline, or devote your family as a fulltime volunteer for four years, only to wake more hearts to care for the poor? That was Alice Kwan’s story. Alice had served in CEDAR for 12 years, 4 of which were spent supporting the community development projects in rural communities in Gansu, China.

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The Letter from CEDAR | December 2017

Dear friends of CEDAR, May peace be with you! There is a say that Ma On Shan, the place where I live, is a “food desert.” I am not sure how true this claim is, but no doubt, as compared with Jordan where CEDAR’s office is located, Ma On Shan is far behind Jordan in terms of the choices of food. Commuting between the two districts every day, I often find it hard to decide where to go for lunch – there are just too many options. In development work, we often encounter similar situation. The world has over 7 billion population and close to 770 million of them are struggling for survival with less than HK$15 a

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We Saw Clearly that the Lord Was With You

Written by: Pastor Daniel Ding During the past 10 years, the Church was able to integrate into the Chinese community through the government’s social service policy which encouraged non-profits to reach its residents. Yunnan was one of the pilot areas. Pastor Daniel Ding, Social Ministry Officer of Yunnan Christian Council, stressed that integration does not mean altering the truth we preach to fit in, but the challenge is to find a way to let our core values prevail. Pastor Ding is going to reflect on Isaac’s faithfulness described in Genesis 26:1-32 and his experiences in the Christian service scene in Yunnan, and let us see how God has always been with us as we serve our community. Isaac

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Human Trafficking

Author: Jojo Poon Martha (obscured) spent her early years with her mother who worked as a sex worker in the red-light district of Mumbai, India. “At the age of 16, my mother met a guy when she was in Nepal. He said he could refer her to work at better places in the cities, and she ended up being sold to work at the red-light district in Mumbai.” With the help of a generous woman from her hometown, Martha was spared from having to suffer the same fate as her mother’s. “Every one of us could fall prey to human traffickers with a tiny change of situation,” as expressed time and again by the frontline workers serving sex

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The Letter from CEDAR | October 2016

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I paid a visit to CEDAR’s Kunming office recently. Though this was not my first time to this city, it was my first time encountering heavy traffic jam there. If we are not too particular, “traffic congestion” can be a simple and easily-available indicator to reveal fast economic growth in any city of less developed countries. Surely economic development does not come without a price, and the inconvenience caused by traffic congestion is one. In fact, impacts do not only rest with the residents, they might also be extended to the NGOs (Non-Government Organizations). Over the last three decades, China’s economic condition has strengthened substantially, and in turn, financial assistance from foreign NGOs has

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The Letter from CEDAR | June 2013

▲ CEDAR works with Sichuan churches and Christian groups to implement quake relief work. ▲ ‘Long term service’ and ‘total commitment’ are required to support communities to face potential disasters. ▲ CEDAR is a member of Integral Alliance, responding to disasters worldwide in partnership with Christian relief agencies around the world. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ: An earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale on 20 April struck Lushan County in Yaan, Sichuan, promptly bringing back the memory of Wenchuan quake five years ago. However, the public media soon turn their focus on whether HKSAR government should grant China 100 million HKD relief fund and the integrity of relief and development agencies. Also many people said, ‘I

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