Drew talks to Andrew Finlay about his time at TEAR Fund and his upcoming work in Vanuatu with Nasi Tuan.

First, a theological point – Second, an exercise in an applied theological reading of a Psalm. The Christian God is a God who acts (see book by the same title, ‘A God Who Acts: Recognizing the Hand of God in Suffering and Failure‘, by Harry Blamires).  God acts both creatively and redemptively.  All.  The.  Time.

Below is the embedded report. You can scroll through it here, make it full screen, download it or print it out. Trafficking In Persons Report

By Carl Worthington In March this year I had the privilege of visiting villages in Paratawada, India. Each of these remote rural communities are served in different capacities through TEAR Fund NZ and their partner EFICOR. A large part of their vision is to provide water to the impoverished local people through water harvesting techniques. It was very hot the day we visited the Mazarkapadi Village. All of our team carried bottled water in our day packs. My dry thirst [...]

Senior International Programmes Officer – Ian McInnes – talks about his role administering TEAR Fund’s aid effort in Haiti and the situation there.

I don’t like the word democracy. It is one of those words that is used to mean all kinds of things, and it is interpreted in all kinds of ways. Democracy is not the world’s saviour… and neither is the blind belief in human progress. Here we are in 2010 and despite our progress, governments still kill their own citizens. A few interesting things happened in Wellington recently, mostly unnoticed by media outlets. A small [...]

Frank Ritchie talks about the recent Israeli attack on the flotilla attempting to break the blockade and bring aid supplies into Gaza.

The information war is being employed to its fullest at the moment due to the tragic incident that took place this week where a flotilla of ships tried to break the naval blockade off the coast of Gaza and were boarded by Israeli Defense Force (IDF) commandos, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. Predictably, all involved parties are painting themselves as victims and pointing to the ‘other’ side as the provocateurs and perpetrators of crime [...]

On July 11, 1947 a ship once known as President Warfield but renamed SS Exodus, left the port of miggets Sete in France. The ship had served as part of the American navy during WW2 but was sold by the War Shipping Administration in 1946. It was purchased by the Potomac Shipwrecking Company which was acting as an agent of the Haganah. The Haganah was an underground militant Jewish organisation operating in Palestine at the [...]

“Damn Israel”. That’s what Turkish protesters have been yelling outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul. Israel is accused of attacking a flotilla of vessels bringing aid to Gaza. Apparently 10,000 tonnes of aid was aboard. About 9 “activists” were killed in the incident. Like most other news emanating from any Israeli-Palestinian conflict – truth is the first casualty. Even a brief perusal of a number of news sources shows contradictory and confusing information. The Telegraph [...]