Missionaries after the Tsunami: Repent or you will not get food?
Just a quick one, and unfortunately I don’t have an English link (yet), but according to an article in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, American NGOs have been combining missionary work and aid distribution in the areas hit by the tsunami in South-East Asia. According to a report made by the Swedish and English Save the Children, as well as UNICEF, many of the children that have been given aid now wear T-shirts with Christian messages; these are children from Buddhist families that do not understand what their T-shirts are saying. Many of the children interviewed reported feeling offended by the religious propaganda, and representatives from children’s homes told of American unnamed NGOs offering food and water if the population let itself be converted to Christianity.
This is all based on a very thorough report which is due in January. I would like to read it when it’s done (also to look at the methodology), but the preliminary results are quite frightening. I wonder if the donors to these organizations knew what their money was going to. The organizations behind the report state that NGOs should be better at listening to and taking seriously childrens’ own stories. (5000 children were interviewed.)
Stian
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Update: I found an English source, the English pages of the Swedish Radio.
