On behalf of The Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission & the Canada & Bermuda Territory Ethics Centre,

Welcome to SPEAK OUT!

‘Speak Out’ is an online conference about advocacy and social justice. It is jointly sponsored and managed by the International Social Justice Commission and The Salvation Army’s Ethics Centre.

Salvationists around the world will meet online to discuss how social justice advocacy aids The Salvation Army in serving suffering humanity.

This e-Summit is open to all Salvationists, free of charge.

Speakers include Lt. Colonel Karen Shakespeare, Dr. Roger Green, Dr. James Read, Dr. Don Posterski, Major Campbell Roberts, Commissioner William Cochrane, Madeleine Sundell, Fanny Frank-Mohlin, Daniel Alarcon, Bradley Harris and Commissioner Andrew Kalai.

The online registration is now open at speakout.e-summit.org - head on over to our virtual registration desk and click on ‘Register as a Delegate’ on the left hand side of your screen. See the ‘technical matters’ note below for more details on the registration process.

To bring you up to speed on this event, here’s 10 Things You Need to Know About SPEAK OUT:

1. SPEAK OUT is a ‘virtual’ gathering. Our usual conference experience consists of registration desks, meeting rooms and coffee stations. You aren’t going to find any of those here. If you’ve logged on to our site, you’ve already been to the registration desk. The meeting rooms and presentations are found by clicking through the website. And you’ll have to brew your own coffee … preferably fair trade, of course.

2. You need to do a bit of homework to make this event work for you. Instead of sitting and listening to someone speaking in front of you, you’ll need to download and read papers, click through powerpoint presentations and listen to a few video or audio presentations. But please note, the presentations are not available on the website until Monday, March 15th. That gives us the time to ensure our space is as functional as possible while still giving you time to prepare before the discussion forums open on March 22nd.

3. The success of this gathering is dependent upon the participation of you, the delegate. We want you to be interactive … to engage with the topics and ideas that are on the website. There is a forum associated with each of the streams and it’s there that you can engage in conversation. Post your thoughts, responses, questions, and become part of the discussion.

4. Most of this gathering does not happen in ‘real time.’ We’ve got delegates from around the world, and it’s impossible to expect everyone to be present at the same time. So we’ve structured the event over a week, with the virtual door open 24 hours a day. This allows you to check into the site whenever it works best for you - at home or at work, for a few minutes or for a couple of hours, from anywhere in the world that you can connect to the internet. And the real bonus is that there’s no dress code … so kick back with that fair trade coffee and make yourself as comfortable as possible.

5. You’ll probably have noticed in the last point that we said “Most of this gathering doesn’t happen in real time.” We have designed some real time chat opportunities over the week, at least one each day. They promise to be engaging and definitely interactive, so we’d encourage you to pop into at least one of them during the event. You’ll find details as to the specific times and topics on the website after March 15th, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated closer to the actual chats.

6. Don’t be afraid to explore the website and check everything out. It’s virtually impossible to ‘break’ anything, and if you’ve got questions, we’ve got people around to answer them. We do, however, need to sleep occasionally, so if we’re not back to you immediately, give us a few hours. We may be even pouring another cup of that fair trade coffee.

7. When you registered, you agreed to the user guidelines. Remember that as a delegate you have become part of the SPEAK OUT community, and communities depend upon mutual respect. We welcome vigorous and strong debate, but will not tolerate personal attacks or derogatory comments. We must all take responsibility for what we write, using our own names, striving for candour, openness and truth-telling.

8. We want you to have fun, expand your horizons, and meet a few new friends along the way. There’s a messaging function that allows you to have conversations with others outside the formal forums, and we encourage you to use it often and with friends new and old.

9. What happens when it’s all over? Good question. The website will be ‘live’ for a while, with the forums and chat functions closed, of course. We will be producing an eBook of the proceedings, which will include the presentations and summaries of the discussions. The eBook will be posted on both the ISJC and the Ethics Centre websites, so you can check back to access or share the information in the future.

10. In fact, though, this event should never end. After March 29th, it’s really in your hands and feet, keyboards and pens. The success of SPEAK OUT rests with you. So with tools in hand, encouragement only a few keystrokes away, and a passion rooted in the enduring promise, “Speak Out!”

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A few technical matters

The website URL, or address, is speakout.e-summit.org. (You don’t need to use ‘www’ in the URL.) Here is the link to it:

http://speakout.e-summit.org

• Register when you get to the site, and follow the directions you will receive in the follow-up email.

• Important: This email may not be recognized by your email client, so please check your ‘junk’ mail folder carefully before trying to register again or contacting us.

• Once your registration has succeeded, go to the website and log in.

• Important: Check the ‘Remember Me’ box only if you are using your own computer or one that nobody else has access to. (Our website uses cookies to store your log-in information, which means that anyone will be able to log in as you if you ask it to ‘remember’ your information. This is especially important if you are using a shared computer or a public one.) You can explore the website without logging in, but you will not be able to participate in any of the interactive elements.

More content is being added to the website every day, but most of it will remain hidden until March 15. Meanwhile, there is nothing to stop you from chatting with other users, writing in the forum, or adding your story in our story-telling circle. (The forum may appear daunting but there is a comprehensive ‘help’ file, which you can access from the forum menu.) We encourage you to go to the website and get used to the interface, so you will be able to participate more fully later in the month.

Finally, after seeing one of the torches fail to rise during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, we feel obliged to add that this is an ambitious and complex undertaking, and one that may not be without its glitches. Please be patient with us. We’ll attempt to resolve technical difficulties quickly but it will help if you ensure you are using a recent browser with cookies enabled before getting in touch with us. If you really do need help, please use the contact form on the website and make a note of the address (URL) of the page that is causing you difficulties.

e-Summit Coordinating Team

The annual Weekend of Prayer for Victims of Sex Trafficking is happening September 25-27 2009. Please commemorate this weekend at your ministry unit. Consider organizing a short prayer service on the Friday for staff at your thrift store or shelter or centre. You can share information about human trafficking and then have people pray. Prayer resources and information sheets are available here for your use.

Amidst the horrifying stories of intrafamilial violence and abuse there is a sliver of good news. Generally, in Canada, violence within family violence structures is decreasing.  Not rapidly, but slowly and surel, it is trending downward. Yet, the improving situation only serves to demonstrate how far we still have to go.  There are still far too many instances of seniors being manipulated by family members, children being beaten, spouses being raped.  This is obviously unacceptable.

As far as we need to go to eradicate violence within families, our distance from a good theology regarding domestic abuse is sometimes equally distant.  Like when a well-meaning, but theologically misinformed youth pastor told me, regarding a case of family violence: “everything happens for a reason.”  This was a pathetic attempt to say “God is in control.”  It projects fatalism – no matter how hard one tries, the future cannot be changed because it is all planned, scripted in advance.   Combine this fatalism with the belief that God is sovereign and one is left trying to figure out why God wrote this act into the play of life; why did my friend have to be violated by a family member? God, what do you have to say to that?

There is an even more malicious partner to this faulty theology: “everything happens for a reason, and the reason is usually a direct cause-and-effect relationship with mistakes we have made in the past”.   So a woman hauntingly claims that God has been punishing her through her husband’s fists for 20 years because of sexual indiscretions during her teenage years.  This kind of belief generates a sick karmic superstition – and begrudging acceptance of whatever punishment is meted by a family member. ..or there are the cases when a church confuses forgiving and forgetting and, in the name of grace, acts recklessly by ignoring telltale signs of familial abuse.  This is happening right in our midst and sometimes it is compounded when a church entrusts other vulnerable persons to the leadership of an abuser.  The effective simile from Proverbs, ‘as a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool to its folly,’ describes the cycle of victimization.  Forgiving and forgetting are not the same, and a sensible theology will not allow the church to forget what the victims of familial violence have gone through.

Above all, we have to recognize that healing comes from God and that the church plays a crucial role in that. In Philip Yancey’s book, Prayer, he includes this powerful prayer which came through the clear, wavering voice of a young woman: “God, I hated you after the rape!  How could you let this happen to me? And I hated the people in this church who tried to comfort me. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted revenge. I wanted to hurt back. I thank you, God, that you didn’t give up on me, and neither did some of these people. You kept after me, and I come back to you now and ask that you heal the scars in my soul.”

May we, the Salvation Army, be people who tenderly pursue, who silently persist, and who continually love.  And may we ardently refuse to accept violence and abuse in the family or any dangerous theology that justifies it or perpetuates it.  May we be an interface of justice, acceptance and love for those who have been abused as well as those who perpetrated the abuse.

 Fondly do we hope; fervently do we pray.

This year our focus in Canada & Bermuda is on sex trafficking that happens within Canada and also sex trafficking that is expected to increase at the Olympics in Vancouver next year.

On our anti-trafficking website: www.salvationist.ca/trafficking we have made information available about sex trafficking, as well as prayer resources. There are some downloads available for use by churches, and more resources will be made available throughout the summer. Please encourage pastors and members of your churches to join us in prayer on September 27 and feel free to visit the site and to make use of the prayer resources.

Churches may want to pray during the Sunday service. Men’s groups may want to have a prayer breakfast and youth groups may want to have a special prayer service or awareness event. The weekend is a chance for people of all ages and backgrounds to come together and intercede on behalf of people who have been bought and sold into the sex trade. This weekend is a Salvation Army event, but all are welcome to pray with us. Feel free to connect with Salvation Army corps or other churches in your communities so that as fellow believers, we can pray together.

Thank you in advance for joining us in prayer and in promoting this important prayer weekend in your churches. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or if there is any way in which we can help.

Rochelle McAlister is our Project Associate for this weekend. Click here to contact her. Blessings upon you as you join us in this important ministry.

Prepared for group study.  To view or download materials click here.

 To view this Group Study click here.

Bible Studies

Directors, Dean Easterbrook and Qiujing Wong, of Borderless Productions Limited (NZ) bring audiences an unobstructed story of Emmanuel Makokha and Silas Odhiambo and their grandmothers who have selflessly stepped forward to raise, educate and prepare them for a better future. Their story begins seven days before, and leads up to Christmas Day as we witness the struggle, survival and reality of these grandmother-headed homes.

A Story that is Already Creating Impact
During the nine-month editing phase of the film, the story began to attract interest and momentum. Filmmakers, Dean Easterbrook and Qiujing Wong had launched Borderless Productions, as a “globally conscious” enterprise, with the vision to create films that would positively impact the world. Proceeds from ‘A Grandmother’s Tribe’ will benefit the Stephen Lewis Foundation, a Canadian based organisation which supports community-based African organizations that benefit women and children living with HIV/AIDS and, in particular, grandmothers. Stephen Lewis, former UN Envoy to Africa, describes these women as “the unsung heroes of Africa”.

To find out more, click here.

To purchase this very reasonably priced DVD, click here.

Folks are not just getting restless, we’re getting mad.  Somewhere deep in our bones we feel it’s just not RIGHT. 

We had a cold winter.  That, we’re used to.  That, we expect.  The universe is not doing anything it shouldn’t do when January is frigid in Winnipeg. The fact that we Prairie people can put up with -40C is a point of pride.  When others [read: Torontonians, Vancouverites, etc.] may make fun of us, we just remind ourselves of this fact:  we who live in Winnipeg are a superior strain of humanity!

But, come on; it’s now June!  We DESERVE better than this.  We’ve EARNED our warm, sunny days.

This is all just silliness, of course.  Jesus had maybe been hearing indignant grumps like me when he said, “God makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.” 

To suggest that Kansans are better people than Kenyans because they get better weather or that Glaswegians are morally inferior to Grecians because they have worse weather is bunk.  And yet, who doesn’t think that way some of the time? 

Which has had me wondering….if we so get it wrong by linking the quality of the weather with the moral character of the people living in a certain place, where else do we unthinkingly get it wrong in connecting conditions of life with people’s character?  Poverty with Sloth; Wealth with Integrity? Cleanliness with Godliness; HIV with Lust; Birth defects with  Sin?