Multifaith Service – World Refugee Day

Shepparton Interfaith Network – in collaboration with the Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District – will conduct a Multifaith Service for World Refugee Day at St Brendan’s Church on Thursday 20 June at 6pm.


Refugee Week 2019 will be celebrated from Sunday June 16 up to Saturday June 22, 2019. In observance of Refugee Week, the Shepparton Interfaith Network in collaboration with Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District will present a Multifaith Service at St Brendan’s Church, Shepparton on 20 June, at 6:00pm. The theme for the service is “The Refugee in Australia“.

The aims of Refugee Week are:

  • to educate the Australian public about who refugees are and why they have come to Australia;
  • to help people understand the many challenges refugees face coming to Australia;
  • to celebrate the contribution refugees make to our community;
  • to focus on how the community can provide a safe and welcoming environment for refugees;
  • for community groups and individuals to do something positive for refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people, within Australia but also around the world; and
  • for service providers to reflect on whether they are providing the best possible services to refugees.

Many of the world’s religions give accounts of human migration in response to disasters, in response to sacred calling, and forced migration on account of disasters like floods, plague, pestilence and famine. Sacred scriptures give account of the presence of the Divine with those on their journeying through desert and sea, through sand and heat, though forced exile and slavery.

Migration, exile and suffering are well known to those who are forced to leave their homeland, their birthplace, their motherland. One becomes a stranger in a strange land, one is forced to live in camps with thousands of others and await their refuge, their release to another land which will welcome them and treat them with human dignity and give them resettlement.

Hope springs eternal in the human heart in face of the tyranny of the mind, ever seeking peace and a place to call their own. Waiting for many years, long waits in UNHCR camps, being reduced to a “case” with a “number” and denied the use of their own name assaults the core of humanity within and causes atrophy of peace, hope and trust in those managing the migration procedures.

We urge you come and join our multifaith service, listen to speakers from the many religions of Shepparton and the Goulburn Valley, and join in intercessions for the minds, hearts and spirits of those who are refugees here in Australia, and for the welfare of refugees everywhere.

Event Details

Program: Multifaith Service for World Refugee Day
Date: Thursday, 20 June 2019
Time: 6PM
Location: St Brendan’s Church, 121 Knight St, Shepparton
Catering: Light Supper afterwards
More Information: 5821 3483
Download a Flyer for this event

St Brendan's Church, Shepparton
St Brendan’s Church, Shepparton

 

Multifath Service - World Refugee Day

 

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