Tag: Church and Community Mobilisation

“Do Gospel” with 16 HK’s Churches, Food Assistance Ministry Benefited over 3,500 People

“We are ‘doing gospel’, not only ‘spreading gospel’. Through our witness indeed, more people can receive the bread of life from the Lord through food assistance,” said by the representative of the Church on The Rock Yan Shing Church “Our church has only around 100 people and many of them are grassroots people, therefore we do not receive many donations. CEDAR’s ‘Journey through Pandemic Crisis – Short-term Food Assistance’ Funding Scheme has encouraged our church. After the completion of the food assistance project, we have allocated the same amount of fund (HK$60,000) previously funded by CEDAR to carry out the second phase of the project. In doing so, we have reached out to some disadvantaged groups that we have

The Letter from CEDAR | December 2019

Dear CEDAR Fans, Peace be with you! I would like to share with you a little reflection of mine during this season of Christmas. From birth to death, the life of Jesus was full of times when He had or was being forced to compromise on His dignity. He was laid in a manger after His humble birth, He was ignored and attacked by His people, betrayed by one of His beloved disciples, and died in the most insulting way of His time. Though He didn’t need to, He entered into all these solely because of His love for us. In our world, the poor and marginalised are often the ones who are least respected. Their powerlessness forces

Fear Not the Slander and Shadow, but to Break the Silence – Interview with Indian Anti-Child Trafficking Activist

Banner image: Aashima Samuel, the National Director of EFIC@R, interviewed by CEDAR “In Indian villages, when we and church pastors advocated anti-child trafficking, some Hindi nationalists accused us of, or even attacked us for ‘brainwashing’ villagers to convert them into Christians. In fact, among them, there were traffickers slandering us to extinguish our anti-trafficking voice,” said Aashima Samuel, the National Director of Evangelical Fellowship of India Children At Risk (EFIC@R), CEDAR’s partner. Samuel experienced obstruction at the entry into villages, unreasonable accusations, being tailed many times, and not being helped by the police, and more. She has experienced all these at work. Although the risk of and resistance against anti-child trafficking ministry are gigantic, Samuel perseveres to break

The Letter from CEDAR | July 2019

Dear Friends of CEDAR, Shalom! In human’s perspective, a subject’s values are often determined by its benefits to people. For example, a down coat is a necessity for people living in cold areas, but often useless for those living in tropical areas. This methodology of defining a subject’s values not only applies to materials, but also to human beings. An old Chinese tale “Wu Yen” is a good illustration. When the country was in crisis, the all-rounded ugly queen, Wu Yen, gained attention from King Xuan of Qi Dynasty. However, when the war was over, the King avoided her the furthest as possible. Nowadays, many social systems value an individual by his/her contributions, which is well exemplified by

How do Churches Instill Hopes to People in the Midst of Disaster?

Banner image: Herda, elder of Boladangko Church (Right) and Cynthia, who lost her father Written by: Jady Sit (Communications Officer) In early November 2018, a few CEDAR’s staffs visited Sulawesi of Indonesia to learn about the local conditions from partner PESAT and visit families devastated by the earthquake. The article below is our staff’s sharing after her visit. If you would like to understand more about CEDAR’s relief work there, please visit the page “Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami Relief”. “During the earthquake, the door was locked, and thus Cynthia’s father was trapped inside the house. When it collapsed, he died,” Herda, an elder at the Boladangko Church, said emotionally with her arm surrounding Cynthia. Sulawesi was struck by an

“Care for the Poor in Tandem with Evangelism.” – Sharing from an Overseas Chinese Supporter

Banner image: Karen Mak, a CEDAR’s Supporter Karen, who resides in Australia, always pays a visit to CEDAR’s office whenever she returns to Hong Kong, even for a short stay. Last year, Karen came to the office again with two huge bags of Australian snacks. She chatted with us like chatting with old friends. We jumped at the opportunity and invited her to share with us her reasons of persistent support to CEDAR over the years. “People in developing countries have very different conditions than those in developed countries. We cannot use methods adopted in developed countries to help those in developing countries,” said Karen. Although Karen lives in Australia, her heart has always been with ministries of

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

The Ever-Roving Lisu

One might readily connect words like “refugees” and “war” to the Syrians, the Rohingya people, or the South Sudanese. In fact, besides the Rohingya refugee crisis in Rakhine State of Myanmar, another 200,000 people in the country were forced to be internally displaced from Kachin State in the north, Shan State in north-east, and Kayin State in south-east due to unceasing armed conflicts. The United Nations estimated that close to 172,000 individuals in these three states need humanitarian aid. Unfortunately, humanitarian effort is limited due to safety concern or inaccessibility in non-government-controlled areas. We have been helping the displaced Lisu people in Kachin State since mid-2017 through our partnership with the Kachin Lisu Christian Council. Lisu people whose village was destroyed or whose communities became unsafe due to