Justice and Witness - 2005

Our justice and witness work covers a wide range of experiences.
Here are some examples:

• January 2005 Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration
• January 2005 Report from Thailand

From Civil Right to Human Rights

January 2005 Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration

We gave more than $1,000 to Tsunami Relief as part of our Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at Flatbush-Tompkins Congregational Church on January 16, 2005.

Freeman Palmer led the Jerriefe Johnson East Village Gospel Choir.

Speakers Dr. Traci West, Associate Professor of Ethics and African American Religion at Drew University and The Rev. Alphonso Wyatt, Associate Minister, The Greater Allen Cathedral in Jamaica, NY called upon us to deal with a wide range of current human rights issues including housing, integration, hunger and prison reform. Our workshops gave us tools to meet these challenges:

• Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State - led by Rev. Mark Lukens of the Interfaith Alliance
  
• Shelter for Homeless LGBT Youth, Ali Forney Center - led by Carl Siciliano, the shelter's Executive Director and Rev. Karen Senecal, pastor at Judson Memorial Church
  
• Picture the Homeless - led by the Civil Rights Committee
  
• Domestic Violence - led by Sally MacNichol, assisted by Dr. Traci West

Conference Minister Geoffrey Black led one of our workshops and gave the closing summary.

Anna Taylor Sweringen was our moderator.

		Traci West
We Shall Overcome
		Alphonso Wyatt

January 2005 Report from Thailand

Below is a first-hand report from Diane Carter who, with eleven others from the Global Outreach Program at Fordham University , served an inland village in Thailand from December 29, 2004 to January 12, 2005 - just days after the tsunami. Because the village is so far inland, it was not affected directly by the tsunami. However, Diane wanted to share this experience to give us all a better understanding of the people in this country so few of us will visit.

Diane Carter and one of her Thai students.

Diane is a member of the Briarcliff Congregational Church, a second-year student at New York Theological Seminary, in-care of the Metro Association, and Assistant Director of Campus Ministry and Director of Global Outreach at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus.

Before he left them, Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment; that they should love one another as he had loved them. Considering the magnitude of Jesus' love, this commandment means loving one another more completely, more unselfishly and more openly than our average response. This is the love I experienced in a small, rural village in the Northeast region of Thailand called Ban Nong Hoi Yai.

From the moment of our arrival, we were welcomed warmly, as though we were long-lost family. We were included in the New Year's Day celebration in the village temple, and as we knelt together in prayer, me to my God, and they according to their beliefs, the love in our hearts transcended our religious differences and our language difficulties. In those brief, but memorable moments, a greater force united a village of poor Thai farmers with my group of students from New York City . Our differences faded and we became one, united in love: one love, one hope, one family.

We went there to teach English in three local schools, and, after ten days, as we were preparing to leave, wondering just how we could go on without the piece of our hearts that now lived in Thailand , one of the children gave me a hand-made musical gift. I heard God's voice still speaking loud and clear as I played the recorded tune, It's a Small World . Thinking back on my experiences, I was deeply moved by the Divine truth in the words of that simple song, "There's so much that we share that it's time we're aware, it's a small world after all."

I may not look different physically than I did before I left, but I am a very different person now. Through their own example, the people of Ban Nong Hoi Yai taught me how to live in love and be more Christ-like, or from their perspective, more enlightened, or perhaps in a universal sense, more truly human as God intended. I am grateful for their love, and I will faithfully attempt to follow their example and obey Christ's commandment.

Diane and the students lived in the homes of their host families, engaged in a mutual cultural exchange and taught English in three local schools. Now that they are back in New York , they are launching a tsunami relief fund-raiser and doing an independent project to create and record an English learning book to send back to the schools so the students can continue to learn English from them.

Diane  teaching in Ban Nong Hoi Yai	Diane learning to fish.
Fordham visitors celebrating with their new Thai friends