Intergenerational Activity: Hospitality for Refugees

Objective
To capture a glimpse of life in a refugee tent, and to gain an experiential understanding of the emergency hospitality provided in crises thanks to Week of Compassion

Supplies
Measuring tape
Masking tape, chalk or string and anchoring items (bricks, books, stones)
Water jugs (empty milk jugs will work)
Optional: blankets, cooking pots
Question page

Pre-Event Preparation
Before the group gathers, mark off on the floor (using masking tape, chalk, or string anchored by bricks to outline the area, or by using books or stones to mark the corners) several 13’ x 13’ squares, representing the size of a typical refugee tent for a family of eight. Make one square for each eight participants you expect. (A typical tent size for a family of six is 13’ by 10’.)

Gathering the Group
Note: If feasible, begin the activity outdoors so participants can experience the effects of weather and being outside.

1. Welcome the group.

2. Ask them to imagine they live in an area that has been hit by a devastating earthquake and its aftershocks. It may be very cold and snowy, or it might be blazingly hot. The buildings in the village have been destroyed. You have been living outside for five days because what was once your home is now a heap of rubble. It is like that for all your neighbors, too.

3. Ask the group to talk about
• what challenges you face living outside
• what you miss about having a home to live in

4. Explain that our gifts to Week of Compassion help provide hospitality to people experiencing a crisis or emergency, who are too far away to welcome into our own homes. Through Week of Compassion, tents arrive for you and your neighbors, plus clean water, food, and medical supplies.

Group Activity
1. Form as many groups of eight or almost eight as you can from those willing to participate, creating groups of various ages, if possible:
• two people, age 55+, to represent the grandparent/respected elder generation
• two people, 22 – 55 years old, to represent the parent generation
• two teens
• two younger children

2. Invite each group to go inside and “move into” one of the squares outlined on the floor. This is the tent they will share as a refugee family! Hand each “family” a copy of the questions below and allow them ten to fifteen minutes to work as a small group.
• At last, a place out of the snow and rain (or the blazing hot sun)! Decide where everyone will sleep. How will everyone fit? (If physically possible, have everyone lie down to try it out.)
• How will you use the space for normal daily activities, like
– playing and working
– storage (You may have lost almost everything, but consider where to put blankets, cooking utensils, water containers, and personal items retrieved from your old home.)
– food preparation and eating
– bathing and toileting
• Will some activities usually done indoors need to be moved outdoors?
• Will you allow animals in your tent (a dog, perhaps, or even goats, chickens, or sheep)?
If yes, how will you live with them? If not, how will you safeguard them?
• What will you do when you want privacy or time to be alone?

3. Re-gather as a large group and talk through the decisions various “families” made as they answered the questions. Ask the whole group how, despite its challenges, living in a tent is better than living in the open. Remind participants that through Week of Compassion, we help families begin to recover from earthquakes and war. Although they may live so far away we cannot welcome them into our own homes to offer shelter and hospitality, through Week of Compassion, we provide them a much-welcomed temporary home of their own.

4. Close with prayer: We are grateful for our own homes, O God. Home is one of the greatest blessings we know. We are grateful that, through Week of Compassion, we help bring the blessing of housing and shelter to families who very much need it. We lift them and their other needs up to you in prayer. And most of all we thank you for being our Home and for being Home to those who may not have a physical house. Thank you. Amen.

Note: Dimensions, pictures, and information about various refugee tents can be found on the website of H. Sheikh Noor-ud-Din & Sons, www.dinsons.com.

Dramatic Interpretation

Objective
To help connect scriptural imperatives with the work accomplished through Week of Compassion

Preparation
The script below can be used in various settings — during a worship service, a youth meeting, an intergenerational gathering. Since little movement and few props are used during readers theater, most of the meaning is conveyed through the oral expression of the four readers.

They do not need to memorize their lines since they read from a script in hand during the performance.

“Reader” sits center stage, closest to the congregation. “Heart for the World” and “Heart for God” stand about 6’ behind and to either side of “Reader,” forming a V-shape. “Narrator” stands off to one side, perhaps behind a lectern.

“Reader” has in his/her lap a large Bible that can easily stay open without the pages flipping. “Heart for the World” might wear a very large red paper heart-shape pinned to his/her front, with a representation of the world taped on it, perhaps a picture of earth taken from space or a color map of the continents. “Heart for God” wears a similar red heart but with a cross or other suitable symbol for God on it.

The Script
Narrator: “Reader” is hurriedly preparing to read the Scripture for worship service. Reader’s heart is in the right place, but, like many of us, s/he is often confused by what the Bible has to say. But God speaks through the Word to this day. “Heart for God” [point out that character] voices the desire to follow God. “Heart for the World” [point to that character] voices the
desire to contribute to the world.

Reader: I need to practice that scripture I’m reading today during the worship service. I want to read it like I really understand what it’s saying. But, Isaiah? I hope it doesn’t have a lot of hard-to-pronounce names in it! I’m glad I get a chance to contribute to the service, but it’s kind of scary, too. I wish I’d gotten the Hebrews passage. It was really short and simple: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have.” Well, maybe that isn’t so simple. What is “doing good”? A zillion, million, impossible things, I think. But maybe Isaiah will help explain. [Flip through the Bible.] Where is Isaiah, anyway? [Locate the actual passage, Isaiah 58, beginning with verse 6.] Oh, here it is.

Heart for God: God is calling you.

Reader: [looking up and around quickly] What?

Heart for God: God is calling you.

Reader: [sounding a bit shaky] I thought I heard someone say, “God is calling you.” Calling me to what? [shakes head as if to clear it] I better get down to business. [looking back down at the Bible] Verse 6: “Is not this the fast that I choose. . .”

Heart for God: God is calling you to worship, with body, mind, and spirit.

Reader: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice. . .”

Heart for the World: Poverty is bondage. Oppression is bondage. You can help to bring justice.

Reader: “. . .to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke. . .”

Heart for the World: You can help to free the oppressed.

Reader: “. . .to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.”

Heart for God: God is calling you to worship that frees the oppressed.

Reader: Wow. The worship that God wants is to bring justice and free the oppressed? That sounds like something you do down at a courthouse or a refugee camp. What does that have
to do with sitting in church?

Heart for God: God is calling you to worship. . .

Heart for the World: . . .that frees the oppressed.

Heart for God: God is calling you to give what you have to God. . .

Heart for the World: . . .to change the lives of others.

Heart for God: Worship. . .

Heart for the World: . . .that changes lives. . .

Heart for God: …will bring you closer to God, here in your church. . .

Heart for the World: . . .whether or not you can go to the camps and courthouses yourself.

Reader: What else is in here? Verse 7: “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry. . .”

Heart for the World: Hungry people need you. Famine in Asia, homeless people in your own town.

Heart for God: God is calling you to give. Sharing with the hungry is an answer to God’s call.

Reader: “. . .and bring the homeless poor into your house.” I don’t know about that. Sometimes I get scared a little by some of the “street people.” And what about the safety of my family if I bring the homeless poor into my house?

Heart for God: Well, I believe God is calling you to bring the homeless poor into your heart and then, perhaps, into your home.

Reader: Into my heart? [wonderingly] What if I brought the homeless poor into my heart? What would I do differently?

Heart for the World: You can help a woman without an income, a child without a home.

Reader: Hmmm. “Bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them.”

Heart for the World: When you see people who have lost everything. . .

Heart for God: . . .God is calling you. . .

Reader: “ . . .to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin.” It’s so easy to shut out the pictures on the TV of all those poor, starving people in Africa and elsewhere, to ignore the street people I pass, to shut down the thoughts of “What do I do to help?” But I guess that is a kind of hiding.

Heart for the World: All the world’s people are your kin. You can make a difference.

Heart for God: God is calling you to love the world with God’s own heart.

Reader: There is so much suffering in the world. I want to do my part! But just thinking about how complex and big the problems are makes me feel blue. I want to do what God calls me to do, but it seems so little, like I can’t make a real difference.

Heart for the World: It’s about giving.

Heart for God: And it’s about receiving.

Reader: Say what? Receiving? I don’t get that.

Heart for the World: What does your text say next?

Reader: The text? Oh, I almost forgot. Verse 8: “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.” My light? Rise like the sun? [warmly] That sounds wonderful!

Heart for God: God is calling you to worship that lets your light shine.

Heart for the World: When your light shines, you change the world.

Heart for God: When your light shines, you change.

Reader: “Your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.”

Heart for God: Healing for you.

Heart for the World: Healing for the world.

Heart for God: When you give yourself to the worship God wants. . .

Heart for the World: . . .the worship that frees the oppressed, feeds the hungry, houses the homeless, and clothes the naked poor. . .

Reader: “. . .your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.” God all around me, me walking in the light of God, following God’s heart. That’s what I want! Let’s see now, verses 10 and 11. Wow! This is good stuff. Wait ‘til the congregation hears this: “If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” Hmmm. . . Sharing
resources. . .

Heart for God: . . .because that is what God wants. . .

Heart for the World: . . .and because that is what the world needs.

Reader: Changing lives. . .

Heart for God: . . .your life. . .

Heart for the World: . . .and lives around the world.

All: Is not this the worship that God chooses, to loose the bonds of injustice and satisfy the needs of the afflicted? Sharing resources, changing lives: Week of Compassion.