Poo’s book ‘Cooking with Poo‘ was short listed for ‘The Oddest Book Title of the Year‘ award at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

You can vote on the site: http://www.formstack.com/landing/6512

The 2012 Training booklet (pdf) sums up a whole lot of different ways you can connect with UNOH this year. And we have some great things happening: not just in Melbourne but also Sydney, Bangkok, London, Auckland, and Indianapolis in the USA!

So have a good read, and please join us for some of the events that are near you.

Jim Reiher
UNOH Training

The latest edition of Finding Life (March 2012) is now ready for reading.

You can read online or access via PDF file.  Content includes:

Empowered by the Spirit for Justice
by Ash Barker

International Society for Urban Mission
formed in Klong Toey slum

News, Updates and Urban Stories
from all 9 UNOH teams in 5 cities

Following Fire UNOH Seminars
with Bob and Grace Ekblad

Sub-merge 12 begins in Thailand

Two new UNOH Publications:
Joel McKerrow’s Beyond Rhetoric, and Ash Barker’s Slum Life Rising

Dear friends,

At noon on February 23, a fire in a single home in Umphiem Refugee Camp erupted and began to spread to surrounding homes.  Because permanent structures are not allowed to be built within the camps, all houses are constructed from bamboo, wood and leaves, making it extremely susceptible to fire, especially in the dry season.  Within ten minutes, dozens of homes were on fire and in less than an hour, the fire had engulfed one third of the camp, turning houses, mosques, nurseries and schools to ashes.  Umphiem is Thailand’s second largest refugee camp and is home to approximately 20,000 refugees from Burma. (from umphiemfirerelief.wordpress.com)

Click to watch footage of Umpiem fire 23 Feb 2012

566 homes were destroyed completely and 257 houses were partly destroyed as they were demolished to make a fire break to prevent the fire from spreading. Two Nursery school buildings, one Muslim Women’s Community building, two mosques (one in section 8 and one in section 9) and one security office in section 9 were totally burnt to the ground. About 20 people received minor injuries while trying to stop the fire – they were sent to the AMI clinic. One three year child was missing. (from www.tbbc.org)

Details of needs according to TBBC can be found at www.tbbc.org/announcements/2012-02-27-news-um-fire-funding-appeal.htm

There are 3 options at the moment that I know of for giving.

TBBC

Thai Burma Border Consortium is a consortium of 12 international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from ten countries providing food, shelter and non food items to refugees and displaced people from Burma. Workers in TBBC have been responding for almost 30 years.

You can donate at their website http://www.tbbc.org/donate/donate.htm

Funds will be used to support the refugees in Umpiem Mai or contribute to TBBC’s other programme activities. They will not go specifically to the fire relief project, but will go to all refugee work on the border. A specific appeal may be setup in the next day or two.

Umphiem Fire Relief

http://umphiemfirerelief.wordpress.com

This group are personal friends of mine and will make sure that it gets to the affected people. They work and live in the camp 4 days a week so have great contacts with people inside. You can read more about how that donation will filter out at their website.

Umpiem Refugee Contact

The 3rd option is through a Karen Christian shop owner who lives in the camp. Her house/shop was 3 houses away from being burnt. She gave a lot of her shop supplies away to those affected and is in a great place to be able to support through her connections with people on the ground. I can personally hand money to her, but it needs to go through UNOH’s Mae Sot account first. If large amounts of money it may take a day or two to transfer all through.

1) Go to UNOH here http://www.unoh.org/donate-now/donate-to-urban-hope-centre

2) Then click on Mae Sot team and scroll to the bottom to click one off amount.

3) Please then send me an email at petemurray@unoh.org with the payment details so I can trace the money and make sure it gets to the right people.

 Do as you please with either of these options. I will try to keep some updates happening as time goes on. There are probably other forms of donating but these are avenues that I trust and know of.

I hope this helps. The people of Burma thank you.

Peter Murray Taylor

+66822378078

UNOH MaeSot Team

Merry Christmas,

In Advent season we remember the joy found in Jesus’ coming. A joy the whole world can know, especially those in the most dire of circumstances. The shepherds who lived rough in fields, immigrants who came from afar to give Jesus their gifts and the families who fled persecution from King Herrod that included baby Jesus himself. From these vulnerable beginnings God’s Kingdom broke through and can free us too to find joy in the most unlikely places. Joy here is not simply fun, but an exhilaration in response to God’s grace, delighting that our life matters because God is involved. I pray we all find this joy in an even deeper measure this Advent and in 2012.

Thank-you for your love and support of Urban Neighbours Of Hope this year. In all the laments and joys that following Jesus in poor neighbourhoods brings, your solidarity helps make transformation possible.

God bless,
Ash Barker,
UNOH Director

For this Christmas Appeal we are offering a free copy of the book ”Cooking With Poo” for all donations of $100 or more made on or before December 2, 2011.  You can donate here.

Football has the potential to bring diverse people together, for joy and love to mingle as God intends. While football is often in the headlines for the wrong reasons, I saw its potential realised this week like never before.  Australia plays Thailand in the World Cup Qualifier

Klong Toey FC and the Socceroos

on Tuesday and so the footballing world gathered and focussed on Bangkok. Australians from the footballing community especially made contact. That someone like former Socceroo and Fox Sports commentator Andy Harper, would visit Klong Toey slum, ‘cook with Poo’ and run clinics for kids on the hot mid-day concrete was just part of seeing this joy unfold.

What I saw clearly was that if people we respect appreciate us, we can be freer to see that our lives matter. For example, through the Australian Embassy, the Socceroos invited our Klong Toey FC under 10s to a football clinic just for them. You could see confidence growing with every kid’s kick. It was almost as if, written on glowing faces, was ‘If heroes of the world game like Mark Schwarzer, Lukas Neil and Luke Wiltshire spend time with me, then I must matter.’  Along with the kids, our coaching staff who attended too, myself included, couldn’t help but walk taller after such an encounter.

Andy Harper from Fox Sports runs a football clinic in Klong Toey. Watch out for his story on us over the next few weeks

Self-worth can make a difference between ultimately destructive or healthy choices in life. This deposit for good into these boy’s hearts – so used to receiving the opposite messages like you’re a dumb, good for nothing slum kids – can be drawn upon when the inevitable challenges arise for lives precariously balanced. We feel like the odds at least started to become fairer this week.

Yet, we have to put self-worth into perspective. Not all people, sports people included, use their time, resources and power to affirm others. Many of us in fact, are tempted to live like we are centre of the universe and every-one else matters much less than me. Too much confidence is a pride that often brings a fall, not just for us, but the dignity of those around us.

Jesus is our best example of humility. As the apostle Paul reminds us, ‘Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,6who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,7but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,8he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death- even death on a cross.’ (Phil. 2:3-8) This is the kind of humility that can at once appreciate who we are in God, yet also freely sacrifice this for others, can transform the world as it can transform the lives of our footballers.

I was proud to be part of the footballing community this week. Surely God smiles when we live as God intends together! I pray for more people like Andy, Mark and Lukas and the others we met. May we all, our boys included, grow in humility and life affirming ways.

Ash.

PS. Our football program is desperately underfunded. If you would like to support Klong Toey FC’s 12 coaches, 100 players with meals, transport, kit and equipment for the $24,000 a year needed, please donate here

PSS. see our boys with the Socceroos on ABC News

*Sarifa was buzzing with excitement and could not wipe the smile off her face. The 17 year old had just shared her story with a group of 85 upper primary students. It was a daunting experience but so precious and important, given her incredible story. The students had sat in silence, spellbound, as she spoke of hiding with her family in a hole in the ground while Burmese militia burned down her village year after year. It was as if they were right there with her as she fled Burma through the jungle, spent 10 years of her childhood in a makeshift refugee camp, and then journeyed as a refugee to the strange new world of Australia. The students imagined the joys and trials of life in Australia as she spoke of attending school in another language, friends and family left behind, and new dreams growing out of the heartache.

Sarifa’s drawing of her family leaving the refugee camp

The greatest wonder of the day for me was not just Sarifa’s incredible story, which continues to blow me away, it was the way compassion seemed thick throughout the room as Sarifa’s story was permanently etched onto 85 hearts. After we left, the students set to writing letters to Sarifa to let her know the impact her story had on them. As I write this we are currently waiting on 85 letters which we hope will arrive in the post today. We have been blessed this year with incredible opportunities to connect school groups, churches, and average Australians, with some of our neighbours in order to share with them the tastes and stories of Burma through our catering and our developing school program. I have been incredibly encouraged to see these different people commune together and seek to understand one another. Our neighbours have been really touched by the interest and kindness they have been met with. I am so glad to be able to participate in seeing a small glimmer of compassion and understanding taking place in a country where discussions of refugees can often be so ugly.

Sarifa about to share her story

It seems unbelievable to already be summing up this year but it is November which means the year is almost over. It has been a remarkable year for me. As I look back I can recognise I have learnt and grown so much but I also have a sense that this is just the tip of the iceberg. It was a great privilege to meet together with all 9 UNOH teams at our mid-year retreat and hear many stories. I am inspired and humbled by the faithfulness of those who shared and encouraged to hear of the ways God can use us when live more and more surrendered to his promptings.

Contrary to some reports, Klong Toey is still dry.  The floods however, have not passed us by yet because water is being held at bay in northern areas of Bangkok, being released slowly and still moving toward us in the south east. So we are not underwater, but I hope that report was not prophetic!

These photos are of another neighbourhood. ‘S’, originally from Klong Toey and part of the Ta Rua church, lives here in northern Bangkok. His motorbike, car and all he owns was in his home when it flooded. With some of our neighbours from Klong Toey we went out on Sunday to this neighbourhood to give medicines, food and water, wading in with small boats to those hard to get at places. It was a special time, not least because the men who are so often looked down upon were the ones helping out this time. We had to get them all special blue t-shirts so flood victims didn’t think they were a gang of looters!

‘Hey thanks, where are you guys from?’ came a shout from a second story home after receiving much needed food.

‘Klong Toey!’, Gung replied.

‘Klong Toey? Really?’

‘Sure. Keep fighting on, don’t give up!’

Very few of these men can swim, two crocodiles had just been caught there from a local croc farm (with over 200 still loose!) and the smelly brown, often neck deep water was putrid. Courage does not do justice for how these men responded.

Please keep praying for Thailand. Over 500 people have died and millions have been affected by these floods. Thailand will be slow to recover. I mean even our football ground where our Klong Toey FC play at Harrow School is still underwater, with only the tops of the goal posts showing. It has been like that for over a month. There is simply no where for the water to go there. We are grateful we have been spared so far, but we are long way from normal.  The TV news and the sand bags out the front our Community Centre and the Second Chance Bangkok shop make sure we are reminded that the water could still come soon.

While every refugees story is different and their anguish personal, they all share a common thread of uncommon courage- the courage not only to survive, but to persevere and rebuild their shattered lives

- Antonio Guterres(U.N High commissioner for refugees, 2005)

Over the last 5 years, Peter and I have felt incredibly privileged to be able to participate in seeing a group of refugees who we have come to love as family, “rebuilding shattered lives”.  Last week as team mate Laura and I went with a young friend of ours “Fatidar” to speak to 85 grade six students about Burma, and life as a refugee, I was reminded of just how much progress we have seen in this community since we moved in 5 years ago.  As I watched 18 year old Fatidar confidently telling the heartbreaking story of her former life in Burma and hiding and fleeing from the military, growing up and spending ten years in a refugee camp on the Thai/Burma border, and then her journey to Australia and the struggles and challenges she faced as she was learning how to navigate life in a new and very different country, I was reminded of the shy young girl who didn’t speak a word of English who we met in the small homework club that we ran in our little office in Springvale 5 years ago.  It was hard to believe that this young woman who was engaging so comfortably with a huge group of kids was the same person.  The children were hanging on her every word, and when she finished sharing, so many hands shot up for questions, these kids were so impacted by the incredible story they were told, and had so many well thought out and fantastic questions.  After that we helped the kids dress up in Burmese clothes and Fatidar painted their faces in traditional Burmese thanaka, then we took them outside to introduce them to a really fun game played by kids in the refugee camps, Fatidar did an amazing job organising all of the kids and teaching them the game.  As we drove home, the buzz in the air was amazing, Fatidar was incredibly moved by the positive response she received from sharing her story, and by how interested the kids were in her experiences, she even began dreaming about future opportunities, and telling us that she would love to continue sharing her story and helping to be part of changing how people think about refugees.  It has truly been an honour and an inspiration to participate in seeing this young woman and so many others as they work hard to persevere and rebuild shattered lives.

Naomi Dekker

Life in Australia is Freedom for our refugee neighbours

A newsletter from Jon and Lisa Owen
Email: jonowen@unoh.org, lowen@unoh.org

Kids Cooking Group

The seasons with their ebb and flow, often reflect back to us the very nature of our souls.

Within them we well up with joy and pride, as well as anger and sadness, and often like the weather, all in the same day.

Honestly, I don’t know much about the soul, many I meet prefer to call it “their gut”, well, whatever it’s called, it’s the seat from which the most exquisite acts of rare beauty emanate.

It’s also the birthplace of courage, that indefinable virtue, that leaves us breathless, when we see the heroic women of our local neighbourhood take a stand against domestic violence. Within their courage lies a resolve that exists not in the absence of fear, but a deep willingness to proceed in spite of it, we are constantly in awe of it.

Kids Cooking Group

On the weekend we had a knock at the door that was so quiet it almost went unnoticed. It was from a slight, beautiful dark skinned girl who almost jumped out of her skin when I opened the door. My wife immediately set to the two most important missionary tasks of anyone engaged on the frontlines – making her feel welcome and making her a cuppa.

It turns out this young girl has 7 kids and desperately wants to leave her drunken, abusive partner. So between cups of coffee and about 2 loaves of toast for her little ones, they made a plan. The first attempt was thwarted, but the next try, on Wednesday night, was more successful. It cost her a broken foot, as he smashed it with an iron bar as she sheltered her kids – but they made it away at 2 in the morning, with Lisa hiding 2 doors down then scooping up the children and driving them secretly away on a balmy evening.

Egg & Spoon Race

Today she still limps around, but, in between the grimaces, there sneaks out a smile that breaks anyone caught in it’s glare for too long into pieces. Her kids are running around, still sticking fairly close to her side, but skipping along a little freer and as she reaches out to embrace them you can see in their eyes that which can never be manufactured, hope.

A new future does not come without sacrifice, it comes through the heroes who, in pursuing a brighter tomorrow often fall today but do not give in, and rise again. It occasionally helps to have someone cheering you on from the sidelines, to remind them that they aren’t alone. It also comes as a great surprise that we share with them a God who not only understands her pain, but has been through it, all of it – the agony of not only

Egg and spoon and 3-legged races at the Sunday School picnic.

suffering violence, but being despised because of it. She receives a lot of scorn from family and friends who have long ago given up telling her to leave him.

We worship a God who not only understands pain, but draws near to those in suffering.

Thank you for helping us stay near to those who need it most.

P.S. Jaz is nearly finished her Year 12 exams, thanks to all who have supported her through. She will be the first of her family to have made it, and that isn’t all, she hopes to continue to University after that!