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Tag Archives: Institute for Global Engagement

The Cradle Fund Revisited

Posted on April 13, 2017 by Charles Strohmer (c) 2014
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Chris Seiple with refugee children in Bekaa ValleyIt’s been more than a year since I posted about the remarkable work of the Cradle Fund. For those of you who are new to this blog – and thank you for being here – the Cradle Fund is a non-profit, Christian-run Middle East initiative led by the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), which “helps rescue, restore and return Middle Eastern Christians and other religious and ethnic groups to a home where they can live and practice their faith free from fear.”

The achievements of the Cradle Fund in the mere three-and-a-half years of its existence are truly amazing. Working with thirteen Cradle Fund partners, it has already helped more than 125,000 refugees. And all of this has been made possible by people’s generous donations.

refugee men and boys shelteed in a community centerThe Cradle Fund is the only non-profit initiative that this blog supports. I have been friends with Chris Seiple, its founder and president emeritus of IGE, for many years. Whether you have supported the Cradle Fund in the past or have yet to help, I urge you to think about supporting this remarkable initiative.

There is a wealth of information and photos about the Cradle Fund on the IGE website. Here are two recent short articles on the IGE site. This link. And this one.

Here is the first article I wrote about it. It explains its fortuitous beginnings and how we got involved. And it will give you other basic info and photos and link you to subsequent articles on this blog about the Cradle Fund’s evolving history, which is pretty amazing.

Thank you for being approachable about this. Soon we will again remember the resurrection of Christ, who rescued us from our sins. And as the rescued know, there’s nothing like a rescue.

©2017 by Charles Strohmer

Photos courtesy of the Institute for Global Engagement.

A note from Charles: If you want more of the perspectives that Waging Wisdom seeks to present, I want to invite you to follow the blog. Just click here, find the “Follow” button in the right margin, enter your email address, and click “Follow.” You will then receive a very short email notice whenever I post a new article. And, hey, if you really like this blog, tell a friend! Thank you.

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Posted in CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY | Tagged Chris Seiple, CHRISTIANITY, Institute for Global Engagement, Middle East, The Cradle Fund | Leave a reply

The End of the Cradle Christians?

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Charles Strohmer (c) 2014
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angel of grief

My eyes are spent with tears,
My heart is in tumult,
My being melts away
Over the ruin of my poor people.

As babes and sucklings languish
In the squares of the city,
They keep asking their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”
As they languish like battle-wounded
In the squares of the town,
As their life runs out
In their mothers’ bosoms.

Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
Behold, and see our disgrace!
Our heritage has passed to aliens,
Our homes to strangers.

We have become orphans, fatherless;
Our mothers are like widows.
We are hotly pursued;
Exhausted, we are given no rest.

I think it’s pretty difficult, probably impossible, for most Westerners reading this to feel the human anguish and hopelessness being uttered in this cry from the book of Lamentations. I know I can’t. I have never been driven from my home to Who Knows Where by the tip of a spear.

But perhaps it is possible to gain some compassion. Think about where you live. Now think about what it would be like for you and your family if an invading army arrived in your town today and pounded on your door, leaving you no choice but one of four options. You can stay if you convert to our religion. You can stay and keep your religion if you pay us an unreasonably large sum of money every month and submit to other intolerable forms of oppression that we have in store for you and your family. You can flee. Or you can do none of those things and be martyred for your faith. And, by the way, if you want to flee, you’ve got to go now!

Think about that.

The Bible is not silent about human beings suffering in extremis – Lamentations is but one of many such narratives. And neither is the Bible silent to those of us who live many physical and emotional distances away from those suffering in extremis. From cover to cover it calls us to compassionate responses to do what we can as good neighbors. It is a love for the suffering that is central to the message and example of Jesus Christ.

Seiple visits a mother and her two children who fled ISISChris Seiple, a friend, and the President of the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE), is now back from his fourth trip to the Middle East in the last seven months, where he and his teams have been traveling to listen and learn firsthand from people who have fled the destroying paths of ISIS (the rampaging militants of the self-described Islamic state). Then building on that personal knowledge from those who have fled, and from talking with their long-term partners in the region, IGE has taken significant next steps.

Working closely with its patrons and trusted partnership, IGE developed the Cradle of Christianity Fund, a remarkable initiative that has been delivering essential aid of all sorts to the region and is now meeting the humanitarian needs of more than 100,000 people who have fled ISIS. The suffering of these families is acute. Not a few have seen family members murdered by ISIS militants, and many of those who have fled are still living in tents and other makeshift shelters.

In a recent article in Christianity Today, Chris writes movingly about the Christian refugees he has met. “Last summer, they fled with nothing but the clothes on their back. A year later, that’s still all they have. Basim Alqassab, a Nineveh Plain Christian now in Amman, told me, ‘We live without salaries or hope of return to our homes. Our hearts feel fatigued and distressed with sadness and injustice.’”

Seiple with displaced familyThat cry of lament from the region is just one of others that Chris writes about in his article. “We Americans,” he reminds us, would do well to remember that “these Christians are the original church. They are in the cradle of Christianity. They are from the part of the world where the Good News was born and raised from the dead.”

In another of Scripture’s anguished narratives, the Exodus, we are told that the people of Israel “groaned” under punishing abuse and “cried out” for help. God “heard” their cry, “saw their misery,” and told Moses, I’ve “come down to rescue them.” Chris, his team, and his partners in the region can be our eyes, ears, and tongues for the displaced families, who need rescue.

Seiple visits a displaced familyLast autumn, when IGE launched the Cradle Fund, my wife and I and some friends began trying to be good neighbors to the displaced families, such as through prayer and contributions to the Fund. I have also written occasionally about this rescue operation as it has progressed in significance in the region. If this is your first time hearing about this remarkable initiative, check out this post, which describes why and how it began. That post will also refer you to other links for much more information, including how to support the Cradle Fund.

Chris also blogs about his trips, sharing what he calls “raw, unedited, and inspiring” stories and pictures. And do read his CT article, where he also reveals a Three R strategy – rescue, restore, and return. It’s a long-term strategy, which Chris admits makes it both “simple and complex.” But it is one that people can all participate in at various levels “so that safety will return to Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.”

The cries of lament coming out of the region have not ended. As Chris wrote elsewhere,  making clear a conviction many hold but are afraid to admit: “It seems that the situation in Iraq and Syria will get worse, before it gets worse.” But we don’t have to wait for the bullets to stop flying to be good neighbors. The Cradle Fund engages in the vital work of rescuing and repairing damaged and broken lives, and we can help ease their suffering.

To support the Cradle Fund.

©2015 by Charles Strohmer

Above lines from the book of Lamentations taken from the Jewish Study Bible: Tanakh Translation

Angel of Grief image by tksummers (permission via Creative Commons); other images courtesy of the Institute for Global Engagement.

A personal note from Charles Strohmer: If you want more of the perspectives that wagingwisdom.com seeks to present, I want to invite you to follow the blog. Simply click here wagingwisdom.com, find the “Follow” button in the right margin, enter your email address just above that button, and then click “Follow.” You will then receive a very short email notice whenever I publish a new article. And, hey, if you really like it, tell some friends! Thank you.

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Posted in CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY, SPECIAL PROJECTS, WISDOM & COMMON GOOD | Tagged Chris Seiple, Cradle of Christianity Fund, Institute for Global Engagement | 2 Replies

The Cradle Fund: Getting Thousands Safely Through a Middle East Winter

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Charles Strohmer (c) 2014
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Distributing blankets to refugeesOnly once have I ever had to worry about getting through the winter. I was dead broke, out of work, and had no place to live. My shelter was a rusty old Chevy. To avoid getting busted as a vagrant at night in Detroit, I drove that car twenty miles on I-96, to a rest area outside the city and  slept there in the car overnight. It was February. It was Michigan. And it was freezing.

On the thirty-minute drive I blasted the car’s heater to get the inside of the big four-door sedan as hot as possible when I turned the engine off to fall asleep in the back seat under a couple of thin, musty blankets that I had scrounged up from somewhere. A few hours later I’d wake up shivering and I lay there until I couldn’t stand it. I then forced myself up, reached my long arms over the front seat, fumbled in the dark for the ignition switch, twisted the key, and hoped the car would start. There was no point, I knew, in scraping the snow off until morning.

With the car running and the heater now blasting cold air, I lay back down, unbothered by a thought at the back of my mind: Best not fall back asleep just now even though you have cracked one of the windows. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to escape reality. I was too beat down to care much about tomorrow. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I made that drive every night for nearly a month. Two or three times each night I would awake shivering, start the car, fall back asleep with the heater blowing cold air, and then awake and turn off the car when it got too hot or the fumes became too strong. What little money I had was disappearing in the gas tank and at fast food outlets. I don’t know what would have happened to me without the direct intervention one day of a good Samaritan in the city, who heard about my situation and helped.

Chris Seiple talks with refugeesI haven’t thought about that struggle to get through the winter for a long time. But those difficult and unexpected weeks have been on my mind lately, while thinking about the plight of the displaced and refugee families who had to flee ISIS and who are currently struggling through the winter in canvas tents, abandoned buildings with glass-less widows, and other makeshift shelters. I know what it was like for me. I don’t know what it is like for them – only that their experience is so much worse than mine as to be incomparable.

The Cradle of Christianity Fund, launched in October of last year, is intervening to help tens of thousands of these families – the most marginalized ones – those who are not in the UN camps. And this exodus may not be over. Just yesterday news broke of yet another ISIS attack on Christian villages. Many fled, but dozens did not make it and were abducted. And yet the urgent work of rescuing and restoring damaged and broken lives has begun.

Chris Seiple has a meal with Dominican SistersChris Seiple, a friend, and the Chief of Mission of the Cradle Fund, just returned from his third trip in four months to the Middle East. He said that the situation for these families remains complexly dire, but that the rescue efforts are making a difference. Working closely with their Christian partners in the region, they have now reached over 50,000 people – providing them with such things as food, blankets, clothing, kerosene, heaters, and winter-proofing materials for abandoned buildings.

Here are just several vignettes from Chris that stood out to me about the recent trip, as he and his team distributed aid and talked at length with many families and with the Fund’s partners in the regions in order to learn more about their specific needs.

A small, mainly Christian village, north of Dohuk, has taken in fifty Christian families, thirteen Yazidi families, and a Sunni Muslim family. There are not enough bathrooms for everyone and water can be scarce. When Chris huddled in a cold room to talk to several of the men, one said, “We are from various denominations, but we are all just Christians now. We are one community in the name of Jesus, our Hope. And our faith is growing.”

Displaced family living in parking lotThey visited a wife and husband who live with their four children in a homemade hut built against a wall in a parking lot. Parked next door to this family’s makeshift shelter is a bus crammed with other displaced families. And near Erbil, in Ozal City, 850 Christian families, 250 Muslim families, and 150 Yazidi families live in the large building complex.

Chris spent time with the Dominican Sisters, one of the Fund’s partners, to learn more about their needs and to share a meal with them. “What a privilege and inspiration” he said. “If you ever wondered what it means to live in community serving the most marginalized – as a fragrance of Christ – you need to spend some time with these sisters.”

newborn refugee babyChris also spent time with a Yazidi family whose home is an unfinished, concrete, three-room structure. The mother had seen her brother gunned down by ISIS and had recently given birth to a premature baby. The grandmother, overwrought with emotion, Chris said, left the room crying, “There is no rest, no food, no hope, no life.”

Elsewhere, a Sunni Muslim said, “ISIS doesn’t represent Islam. They have no humanity. They destroy everything. But I was received in [a Christian] village with dignity and honor. We came with just the clothes on our backs, and they gave us food, shelter, and everything for a proper life.”

But betrayals have left deep scars that are poignant reminders of the complexity. Chris spoke to a Yazidi man who had been holed up on Mt. Sinjar for nine days after escaping ISIS with his family. His Sunni Arab neighbors, he said, with whom he had shared meals in his home, joined ISIS and would call him on his cell phone to “tease” him. How can we ever trust the Muslims, he now wonders. We don’t want to go back.

At the heart of this unimaginable life and times, the Cradle Fund works alongside regional churches and religious organizations in the region to bring huge amounts of aid and support to these wounded and grieving families.

refugee men and boys shelteed in a community centerThe Fund, which I have previously written about on this blog, enables churches and people of faith here in the United States to join with the indigenous efforts already underway by local churches and organizations in the countries of conflict and the countries that have received the overwhelming numbers of refugees. I can’t say enough good things about this initiative.

Here is a link to dozens of inspiring photos from Chris, who included a short text with each one (click on a photo to read the text). The Cradle Fund is being administered by the Institute for Global Engagement. Here is a link to IGE’s Facebook page, where you will find detailed info about the Cradle Fund. It’s an impressive vision.

Please think about helping. Support the Cradle Fund. Become part of this grace-filled intervention. Many thanks to all who are already supporting this with your prayers and gifts.

©2015 by Charles Strohmer

Photos courtesy of the Institute for Global Engagement. Use of these photos does not suggest endorsement.

For more information. Like a growing number of people who are now following and supporting the Cradle Fund, here you can find many more moving stories and pictures about how the people are living in these stopgap conditions (from Chris’s blogs among the displaced families). Also check out IGE’s Facebook page and the above links as well.

Here are some FAQs about the Cradle Fund. Also Chris is providing personal updates from the region, including photos, on the IGE website and Twitter. Coverage of the Fund is also found at Christianity Today, CBN, and MPAC and Fox News.

Other posts and updates on this blog about the Cradle Fund: The Cradle Fund: Helpless No More /// Snapshots: A Day-in-the-Life of Iraq’s Religious Refugees /// This Bad Weather Is No Joke /// A Bridge for Shalom in the Middle East.

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Posted in CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY, SPECIAL PROJECTS, WISDOM & COMMON GOOD | Tagged Chris Seiple, Cradle of Christianity Fund, Dominican Sisters, Institute for Global Engagement, ISIS, refugee families in Middle East, The Cradle Fund | Leave a reply

Irreconcilable Religious Differences: No Need for Conflict

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Charles Strohmer (c) 2014
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Arab and Jewish lads“We need to be bold to contend with [Muslims] about our disagreements as to what the Bible teaches and as to why we ought to live to obey God.”

That line from Jim Skillen’s interview about core differences between the modern-day spread of Islam and Christianity prompted this significant comment from a friend: “I have not heard anyone express the concept of relationship with the Muslim belief as he has. So often we hear that we should ‘turn the other cheek,’ or ‘live and let live. While [Skillen] stops short of militant reaction in the narrative, he does say to remain firm in the faith. I like it, and have a better understanding.”

I was going to reply to that comment in the comments’ area at the end of the interview, but instead, I want to do it here in a post, where there is enough space to do justice to the comment and perhaps take it a step further.

When Skillen spoke of contending with Muslims about our disagreements with them over how we ought to live, it was in the large context of the different ways in which Christians and Muslims practice the religious, political, and social areas of their respective faiths. And occasionally we may indeed need to turn the other cheek to one another.

But most likely, religious interlocutors, as Skillen notes, frequently need to contend with one another about how they should live, especially if Christians and Muslims, for instance, are working together on a community project. In such close quarters, responsible citizens seek to foster the kind of cooperation that results in an equitable outcome for the good of all (as much as is possible). Most people don’t have a problem with this, and I won’t spend more time with it here. Various aspects of such dialogue, diplomacy, and negotiations have been discussed in many and diverse ways in previous posts on this blog. As I say, most people – Christians, Muslims, Jews, and secularists alike – get this.

There is an elephant in the room, however. Irreconcilable religious differences, or core beliefs, are for many people a conversation stopper. It can easily enough prevent even starting down the road to seeking and finding cooperative arrangements and agreements. But it need not.

Everyone stands ultimately somewhere. And that “ultimate somewhere” is religious ground, the ground of faith. So ultimately there is no neutral ground, even for those who do not consider themselves religious. For instance, a theist believes that behind the material world an unseen God exists; an atheist believes that the material world is all that exists. Both are faith beliefs, and irreconcilably so, as between Muslims and Christians.

Carter Begin Sadat handshakeIrreconcilable core beliefs are simply a fact of life. But they need not lead to mayhem and murder. The secret is to be able to acknowledge – not evade or hedge – the fact that core differences exist that are not reconcilable. And then just get on with getting on with each other. I remember participating in all-day seminars and workshops in Washington DC, in which, during one session, some Muslim and Christian leaders in the room said to each other, only half-jokingly: I wish you would convert to my faith, but that’s not what we’re here for. We’ve convened this meeting to try to find a way to work together across boundaries to solve such and such a problem.

These leaders knew what they believed. They knew those core beliefs were irreconcilable. They agreed to disagree on them. But because they were not people with violence in their hearts, they also understood that their core differences did not prevent their public collaboration on an initiative for the mutual good of them all. This kind of responsible engagement is not uncommon and it is supported by the biblical wisdom tradition, although many Christians seem to be unaware of both.

Here are a few quick examples. Of core religious differences, wisdom theologian David Ford writes in The Shape of Living that the “best engagements are between those who can say where they are coming from and then patiently try to communicate and discuss matters of importance” (p. 30).

Timothy Keller, as founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan – a city wildly diverse in its religious and cultural ethos, also knows something about how to foster cooperation and peace amid human diversity. Keller locates this kind of pluralist engagement and “learning from the other” in the Bible’s teaching of common grace. Simply put, all human beings, whether they are Jewish, Muslim, or Christian, or whether they believe in God or not, share gifts of wisdom, insight, creativity, and beauty because these gifts come to everyone. Christians call this common grace, Keller said, because they consider these as gifts that come from God. “If that’s the case,” he concluded, “then I could expect that my neighbor who does not believe anything like I believe might still have wisdom from God that I have to listen to.”

Gabe Lyons, the founder of Q Ideas, once did a pretty outlandish thing for a Christian leader. He invited imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to a large Q Gathering in Portland, Oregon, in April 2011. Concerned about the heightened tensions between some Christians and Muslims in America that had not subsided since the previous summer, due to the ground-zero mosque controversy, Lyons knew that lack of understanding can be at the root of unnecessary relational problems, and he simply wanted to interview the imam, a peaceable Sufi, and “get understanding” (Proverbs 4:5).

PeacemakingElsewhere, Lyons wrote: “Can you imagine a future where Muslims and Christians would work alongside one another in our communities to fight for justice, care for the poor, and offer hope to those in need?” He then cited the work of Eboo Patel, an Indian Muslim and American citizen who founded the respected Interfaith Youth Core, headquartered in Chicago, which works with Christians and Jews on community projects in many cities. Lyons then invited Patel to give the Q version of a TED talk. To Christians who questioned his decision to hang with Muslims, Lyons replied: “The longer I live the more I’m inspired by the life of Jesus and the way he was able to sit down and converse with people who were so unlike him.”

An unspoken irony in these episodes is that if Muslims such as Rauf and Patel can find justification in their religion to be peaceably engaged with Christians, can we Christians not find it in ours to be peaceably engaged with Muslims? After all, we are the ones who claim to be under the governance of the Prince of Peace (Sar Shalom).[Jesus: 5 of 7]

The “relational diplomacy” of the Christian-run Institute for Global Engagement is another example, which bears fruit in Muslim – Christian relations even in Pakistan. And the “principled pluralism” of the Christian-run Center for Public Justice is another exceptional case in point. My point is that the kind of biblically-based engagement we are considering is not being done in a corner. It’s becoming increasingly public. It’s just not reported on the evening news, which follows the old journalistic saw: If it bleeds it leads.

And for anyone wanting exceptional case studies from the Bible itself, I refer you to the fascinating stories of Joseph in the book of Genesis (chapters 39-41) and Daniel in the book of Daniel (chapters 1-6). [link to appropriate posts] We also have the example of Jesus himself, who taught and practiced outlandish ways not only of loving one’s neighbor but one’s adversaries. It is a gospel-shaped wisdom, and a bold one at that – requiring as it does, death to self.

God’s call to love, justice, and reconciliation is central to the entire biblical narrative. It is a huge area of human responsibility and obligation, and religious believers with strong core convictions do not get a pass on this, even if they feel pretty nervous about moving this way with God. I get that. When Jesus called peacemakers blessed, when he emphasized turning the other cheek, when he commanded love of enemies, when he required sheathed swords of his disciples, he was throwing down the gauntlet to the deepest depths of what it means to follow him.

And you know it don’t come easy. But desperate times call for bold measures.

©2015 by Charles Strohmer

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Posted in MOODS & TUDES TODAY, WISDOM, DIPLOMACY & NEGOTIATIONS | Tagged Center for Public Justice, CHRISTIANITY, Common Good, David Ford, Eboo Patel, Feisal Abdul Rauf, Gabe Lyons, Institute for Global Engagement, Islam, James Skillen, Q, Timothy Keller | 2 Replies

Snapshots: A Day-in-the-Life of Iraq’s Religious Refugees

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Charles Strohmer (c) 2014
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Chris Seiple with refugee children in Bekaa ValleyThey miss their homes, their village churches, and the life they had in their communities. They fled ISIS, but they can’t flee the winter. They are cold and holed up in abandoned building or small tents. Many are stuck in makeshift quarters so small that tensions can run high among families with nothing to do and no schools for the kids.

That’s just part of Chris Seiple’s firsthand, snapshot look at winter life setting in for religious refugees in Northern Iraq, where he and his team recently met with many now-displaced families who have fled ISIS, mostly Christians but also other religious minorities and Muslims as well.

Chris is the president of the Institute for Global Engagement and, like many others, I’ve followed his recent trip, whose mission further assessed the tragedy on the ground and delivered goods and hope from the Cradle of Christianity Fund. Some families I visited, he wrote, are living in places where they can’t use the kerosene heaters because the walls are flammable, and for others the donated electric heaters overload an electric system not designed for use by so many for refugee families. So the power frequently goes out.

Makeshift refugee tent life in Northern IraqTheir stories are all the same, Chris told National Review Online. “They fled in the middle of a hot summer night as ISIS approached… Their situation is dire, and they need all the help possible to get through the winter. They have now been away from their homes for four months and they are losing hope about the possibility of returning. Their despair is compounded by this twofold fact: they are middle class refugees within an hour or two of their beloved homes. They all had respectable jobs and status in society. They are professors, lawyers, doctors, etc. They had homes and people over for the holidays, just as we do. Now they live in the corner of a basement, or in a 6×10 metal box provided by the U.N.”

In a previous post, I told the amazing story about how the Cradle of Christianity Fund began – a truly remarkable initiative created to rescue and restore displaced and endangered Christian communities in the Middle East and to provide support for members of other affected communities as well. So I won’t take time to echo that story here.

I do want to say that I have been impressed by the amount of shares that post evoked – Thank you for that! – and by stories of support I’ve heard. One comes immediately to mind – the creative way in which one person turned the tables on ISIS, which has been spray-painting the Arabic letter “n” on Christian homes and churches. After doing a little research about that, she used the symbol to give a short talk to her Methodist church to raise support for the Cradle Fund. “Unlike the Passover blood which saved the Jews,” she told me, “this ISIS letter marks Christians for death or exile if they will not convert. I had a wonderful response” and we sent a check.

Chris Seiple (top, far right) with displaced familes in Northern IraqUntil I heard from Chris about the Cradle Fund, everyone I spoke to about helping these displaced families was at a great loss about how to do that. We were here. They were there. And there was no bridge that we knew of. Now there is. So I’ll conclude here simply by wearing my heart on my sleeve to ask you to support the Cradle Fund. There are various way to do that. And also, do alert others, perhaps just by sharing this post with them.

IGE is very relationally oriented. Its biblical praxis of “relational diplomacy” combined with “principled pluralism” is deeply wisdom-based and has led to tremendous breakthroughs where other paradigms have failed in the vital field of Track Two diplomacy. This gives IGE a lot of street cred in the Middle East. As a result, Chris and his team are working directly with many well-established contacts across the spectrum of Middle East churches and organizations in order to get aid from the Cradle Fund directly to tens of thousands of displaced Christians and members of other affected communities. The Syrian Aid Society, Eastern Patriarchs, and Canon Andrew White of Iraq, whose NGO is a Cradle Council Member, are just a few of them.

For more information. Like a growing number of people who are now following and supporting the Cradle Fund, here you can find many more moving stories and pictures about how the people are living in these stopgap conditions (from Chris’s blogs among the displaced families). Also check out IGE’s Facebook page and the above links as well.

Here are some FAQs about the Cradle Fund. Also Chris is providing personal updates from the region, including photos, on the IGE website and Twitter. Coverage of the Fund is also found at Christianity Today, CBN, and MPAC and Fox News.

Other posts and updates on this blog about the Cradle Fund: The Cradle Fund: Helpless No More /// This Winter Weather Is No Joke /// The Cradle Fund: A Bridge for Shalom in the Middle East  /// The Cradle Fund: Getting Thousands Safely Through a Middle East Winter.

©2015 by Charles Strohmer

Above photographs courtesy of the Institute for Global Engagement. Use of these photos does not suggest endorsement. Top photo: Chris Seiple at a refugee school in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon (all these children had lost at least one parent and seen things from beheadings to kidnappings, which no child should ever see). Middle: Makeshift tent housing in Northern Iraq. Bottom: Chris (top right) with displaced families living in Northern Iraq.

 

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Posted in CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY, SPECIAL PROJECTS, WISDOM & COMMON GOOD | Tagged Andrew White, Chris Seiple, Christian refugees in Middle East, Cradle Fund, Cradle of Christianity Fund, Institute for Global Engagement | 1 Reply

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"Odd Man Out is inspiring, humorous, and will keep you on the edge of your seat." - James Trimble, singer/songwriter, US

"[A] deeply authentic piece of personal story-telling." - Liz Ray - media producer/presenter, UK

". . . the book has the same compelling quality as Pilgrim’s Progress and becomes about Everyman rather than the author." - Alan Storkey, author, UK

"Odd Man Out is a realistic account of a life set in the midst of a generation attempting to find meaning through worldviews alternate to both traditional religions and a secularism on its way to nihilism." - James W. Sire, author of The Universe Next Door and Apologetics Beyond Reason, US

"An enthralling read. It takes us on a poignant spiritual journey. . . I loved this book and so will you!" - Mark Roques, author, storyteller, and director of RealityBites, UK

"Odd Man Out will remind Baby Boomers of forgotten music and never-to-be-repeated times. And newer generations may recognize in their own experiences the joys, challenges, and painful cries that Charles faced back in the day." - Cynthia Furlong Reynolds, author, US

"Odd Man Out inspired me with hope. I was greatly encouraged by this book." - Mike Osminski, pastor, Lord of the Harvest Christian Fellowship, Michigan, US

"A fascinating, engaging, and honest story." - Noel Richards, singer/songwriter, UK

"A story full of twists that will make you stop, think, and wonder." - Wes White, pastor, Evergreen Church, Tennessee, US

THE WISDOM TRADITION

THE CHALLENGE OF THE WISDOM TRADITION IS NOT THAT IT IS ANCIENT OR PRIMITIVE; IT IS IN ITS ABILITY TO SPEAK TO OUR WORLD SO POINTEDLY AND WITH SUCH PRACTICAL SOPHISTICATION THAT OUR ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHAT IS POSSIBLE APPEAR PALE AND IMPOVERISHED BY COMPARISON. - Chris Bourne

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Recent Posts

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  • Our Citizenship (on earth as it is) in Heaven
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  • Why the Experts Need the Intelligent Amateurs
  • A rare astronomical event is happening this Christmas. Is it the Star of Bethlehem?
  • “Arms and the Man” v. “Put up thy Sword”: Tough Questions for Rick Joyner, Jim Bakker, and the Prophetic Movement

WISDOM IS BETTER THAN WEAPONS OF WAR. Ecclesiastes 9:18

"IF PEACEMAKERS ARE BLESSED, WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE WARMONGERS." Anonymous

WHEN THE EXPERTS ARE AT LOGGERHEADS, IT'S TIME FOR FOOLS TO RENDER AN OPINION. John R. Peck

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AN ANSWER WITHOUT A QUESTION IS DEVOID OF LIFE. Abraham Joshua Heschel

PROBLEMS CANNOT BE SOLVED BY THE SAME LEVEL OF THINKING THAT CREATED THEM. Albert Einstein

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