Relief

The offices of the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) and the offices of relief organization Sudan Aid, both in the Darfur region, have reportedly been closed down by the Sudanese government without warning. Observers suspect Sudan's reported war on religious minorities, specifically Christians, may have been motivation for the closures.

Given the context of the Muslim government's reported animosity toward non-Islamic groups, the news coming from the SCC has attracted widespread criticism from the Christian community.

The Sudan Council of Churches' offices are located in Nyala, the main city of Southern Darfur state. The SCC officials told the press last week that on April 22, just as they came to work like on any other day, agents from the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) showed up, ordering the staff to hand over keys to the premisses as well as company vehicles. Then, the authorities ordered SCC staff to leave immediately, without providing explanation, the organization said. more >>

The United Nations launched an urgent appeal on Tuesday calling for emergency assistance for the millions of Southern Sudanese who are facing staggering levels of food insecurity.

The World Food Program estimates that around 4.7 million people in South Sudan are in need of food assistance with an estimated 1 million people set to suffer from food insecurity in 2012, and another 3.7 million people likely to face significant vulnerabilities to food insecurity.

"There are food shortages, there is conflict related displacements, there is agricultural disruption, the economy is deteriorating and the borders have been closed. You add up all that and that is why we have the kind of situation that we are in," UN Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan, Lisa Grande, told reporters on Tuesday regarding the situation in South Sudan. more >>

Refugee pastors are asking Christians to pray for peace between Sudan and South Sudan.

The pastors were forced to flee their homes and walk for days to reach the safety of refugee camps. Abraham Rehan, pastor of a Sudan Interior Church (SIC), said: "It took us nine days to get here and we felt so bad having to leave all our things behind."

More than 20 SIC churches have had to close their doors and flee to the refugee camps. They make up some of the 120,000 people who have now fled the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state, where a humanitarian crisis looms. more >>

A new $50 million dollar initiative designed to help people and communities across the U.S. experience a day free of poverty is being launched this weekend by faith-based organization Convoy of Hope.

The initiative, called "The Convoy of Hope," is a two-year outreach tour across 50 states that seeks to unite churches, nonprofits, local governments, communities and others to assist individuals and families struggling to cope with economic hardship.

Convoy of Hope is a Christian nonprofit organization that has served over 50 million people in more than 100 countries around the world, but "The Convoy of Hope" tour was inspired by the growing levels of poverty at home – here in the United States. more >>

Christian organizations and Good Samaritans around the world are joining together this week as part of an awareness and fundraising campaign that hopes to impact the lives of over a billion people globally.

The campaign, known as Live Below the Line (LBL), is an initiative begun by the Global Poverty Project and has since morphed into an international effort in which people from all over the world – from Nigeria to Haiti – live in solidarity with the world's 1.4 billion people who live below the World Bank's definition of the extreme poverty line.

Participants of LBL live off of $1.50 a day – the equivalent of extreme poverty – from May 7-11 to experience firsthand the challenges people who live in destitute poverty face on a daily basis. more >>

Actor Stephen Baldwin has teamed up with talk show host and "Secret Millionaire" alumna Dani Johnson in an effort to feed orphans around the world in a campaign called "2012 in 2012," Baldwin announced Monday.

Baldwin and conservative commentator Kevin McCullough are using their talk show media conglomerate, XtreMEDIA, to launch the project "to rescue 2012 orphans in the year of 2012." They are teaming up with Christian ministries King's Ransom Foundation and Food for Orphans for the project.

"When I toured the places these children sleep and live in, I couldn't help but be moved to do something about it. My whole family saw with our own eyes children who were dying or would die soon, simply because they had no food," stated Baldwin in the announcement from XtreMEDIA. more >>