In response to the war in Ukraine, many people are donating to help address the immediate needs of people suffering there. What else can people do?
This may sound overly spiritual and I apologize if it does. But once a pastor, always a pastor. The first thing I would say is we’ve got to keep praying for the situation and for the people of Ukraine and for Russia, and for other communities around the world. The reason I say that is that it’s really hard for our mind and our hands to go somewhere where our hearts are not captivated by prayer. Prayer is one of the greatest forms of, not just bringing our requests to God, but also creating empathy and solidarity. For the long haul, if our hearts are not in solidarity and we’re not empathetic, we’re not going to have an imagination for what long-term engagement looks like, or for long-term mercy or justice work
We encourage people to give directly to trusted organizations. We are asking people to join us in some really strong advocacy asks to Congress. We’re asking Congress to provide no less than $3.8 billion in supplemental emergency food and nutrition assistance funding for hunger crises around the world. That’s a dramatic ask. But what that does is it provides the resources for organizations and communities to be able to not just respond to immediate, short-term needs but also to start thinking what long-term development looks like as well.
What would you say to people who feel like they’re overwhelmed by all this, but they don’t know where to start?
It’s really important to leave ourselves some space for lament and despair. I have a hard time with any kind of spirituality, whether it’s Christian spirituality or otherwise, where we don’t give room for despair and lament and grief. The last two, three years in our nation and around the world have been hard. It’s not just the pandemic. We’ve seen incredible polarization. We’ve seen a dramatic rise of anti-Asian rhetoric and violence. There has to be room for lament and grief and despair.
Yet, there is a difference between helplessness and hopelessness. There are limits to what we can do in Ukraine, so there is a sense of helplessness. But we’re not a hopeless people. We have got to come together and continue to act with faith, empathy and solidarity and keep doing what we feel like we can do even within our limitations. I truly believe that as Scripture tells us in the Book of Hebrews, we can cling to this unwavering hope, despite some of the challenges we see in our world.
This article originally appeared here.
