The news this week has been sad and joyful. While we again don’t seem to be in danger in our city, we’ve been hearing frequent updates of other indigenous sisters and brothers needing to find ways to get out of their town immediately, because outside extremists are indiscriminately attacking their area of the country. It is another helpless feeling to hear how gradually the situation changed from church members thinking about leaving and knowing there were bus tickets available if they had the funds, to then hearing bombs, shells, and bullets right in their neighborhoods and that the buses were full, the money transfer kiosks closed, and the gasoline supplies unavailable. A question that weighs heavily is what can we do to help in those moments of crisis? The joyous news is that someone in the church family owns several big trucks and was able to take everyone who wanted to leave to neighboring towns. Now the army is restoring control and pushing the conflict away. We were able to help with finding small funds for continuing this evacuation, as these church members will come as refugees to our city and a few other places for some weeks until the situation has totally calmed down.
At the same time we hear of refugees from other countries now being kicked out of the towns here. It is too difficult for the authorities to distinguish who is a refugee fleeing the extremist and who is an extremist trying to expand into new territories, so they will be forced into camps where the government can keep track of them better. An unhappy situation all around.
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