As a humanitarian aid worker, I've traveled around the world to countries that
have suffered natural disasters. And time and time again, what I see are communities of faith responding to survivors' critical needs.

In Sri Lanka after the tsunami, people flocked to monasteries, mosques, and temples to find food, water, and shelter and reunite with their families. Right now in Myanmar, following a devastating cyclone and a distressing shortage of aid, survivors are finding refuge, relief, and protection in monasteries across the disaster zone. As the flooding continues in the U.S. Midwest, churches are centers of care and communication.

And after hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the Gulf Coast, courageous congregations, including Unitarian Universalist congregations, were there to gather people, respond to their spiritual needs, and match material needs with resources. Three years out, these communities of faith continue with this essential work.

Indeed, "church" and "ministry" can manifest themselves in many ways in times of crisis and disaster. In such times, we are presented with the possibility of grace.

How faith communities are able to respond — and whether or not they choose to respond — to a disaster depends greatly on their resources: structural, financial, technical, human, and spiritual. Disasters can allow us to channel grace, but first and foremost they deliver us tragedy and trauma. Ministering to the needs of the church is the initial step. Once the church has evaluated its capacity to do so, then there are a number of ways to reach out to the larger community.

This was part of a larger discussion on disaster preparedness held by Unitarian Universalist ministers, lay leaders, and congregants this past week at the denomination's yearly General Assembly. During this discussion, participants considered some of the ways that churches can match needs and resources among their communities. Possibilities include: becoming centers of collection and distribution of aid; providing direct services, such as hot meals or child care; offering safe meeting spaces where people can talk, listen, pray, and plan; providing shelter; joining interfaith responses; and protecting the most vulnerable among us from being overlooked and underserved.

During crisis and disaster, faith communities can be, and very frequently are, centers of relief, refuge, and hope for all — honoring humanity's interdependence and demonstrating that, even in dark times, the best of humanity can shine through.

As a longtime employee of the Institutional Advancement Department (read “fundraising”) at UUSC, I’ve been asked many times to clarify the nature of our work and how it’s funded, especially when it comes to our humanitarian relief work. In a time of humanitarian crisis, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami or the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, people wonder why they should donate to UUSC over, say, the Red Cross or Oxfam or any one of a number of charities providing direct aid to people around the world.

I tell them that if they want their money to be used immediately, they should donate elsewhere. There are many fine organizations out there that are ready and willing to swoop into a disaster area on short notice to manage immediate relief efforts. However, if these donors want their money to be thoughtfully granted to grassroots UUSC partner programs located in areas of great need and administered by program officers sensitive to the needs and concerns of the local people in ways that promote longterm solutions to issues faced by marginalized populations, then they should give to UUSC.

Last month, while traveling in Indonesia and meeting some of the beneficiaries of the generosity of UUSC donors, I learned just how important this distinction is.

Indonesia is primarily a nation of Muslims -- in fact, it’s the largest Muslim nation in the world. The Aceh region, specifically, is under Islamic (sharia) law, making religion an important part of the everyday fabric of life there. The complexities of this environment make our partnerships with local grassroots organizations vital. Not only do they help us identify and support particularly vulnerable populations, they know the people they serve. They know the cultural issues that sometimes preclude some local populations from accessing – or even knowing about – options for aid and exercising their rights.

Over the course of a week spent with the Bedari delegation, meeting with representatives from such groups as Solidaritas Perempuan, LBH-APIK, Bungoeng Jeumpa, and the Center for Community Development and Education (CCDE), I learned that women in Indonesia and Pakistan face similar issues of: 1) not knowing their rights under either sharia or secular law, 2) not knowing how to access their rights, 3) encountering familial and/or cultural resistance to accessing their rights, and 4) widespread ignorance or misinformation on what rights sharia law actually grants to women.

I also learned that members of these partner organizations -- paid and volunteer, female and male -- spend a lot of time reaching out to communities and building trust so that people will feel able to share their problems and ask for help. Field representatives of both sexes are necessary. Women need to be active in their struggle for their rights, and women survivors often only feel comfortable confiding in other women. Men need to stand in solidarity with women, and many men in local communities are more receptive to the message of women’s rights, especially in a religious context, when it’s delivered by other men. In this way, slowly but surely, our partner groups in Indonesia and Pakistan are fertilizing the ground in which the seeds of women’s rights may grow.

What's more, I heard complaints from several people about Western tendencies to march in and start giving orders, pointing out the speck in the other's eye while ignoring the plank in their own and running roughshod over cultural and religious sensibilities different from theirs. This is not unique to Indonesia or Pakistan. Look at American gunpoint “diplomacy” around the world these days, especially in Muslim areas. Are we truly making anything better? Are we creating lasting, positive change? Or are we merely making millions of people feel disempowered, controlled, and resentful of us? Are we actually sowing resistance to the ideals we purport to uphold? We need to ask ourselves these questions at all levels, lest we inflict more wounds than we heal.

My experience in Indonesia has deepened my conviction that although we, Americans, have the power to tell people what they need, what to do, and how to run things, doing so will never produce meaningful, beneficial, lasting change. If you share this view, if you believe that giving people the tools to help themselves is ultimately a better strategy than simply trying to fix their problems for them, then consider donating to UUSC.