The Community of Living Traditions - an intentional community of Muslims, Jews and Christians engaged in peace and social justice work

We also help operate a conference center owned by the Presbyterian Church USA, and practice “radical hospitality,” which in its deepest sense means “welcoming the other, welcoming the stranger.” Two members of our Muslim cohort have been invited by the Austrian NGO Echo100Plus to offer “radical hospitality” to refugees at Ritsona Refugee Camp in Greece, by helping distribute food and essential supplies, and provide urgently needed basic Arabic interpretation services. We need to raise $2,500 to respond to this call.

Sending two volunteers to Ritsona, Greece to help Refugees

Funds raised will cover

• the cost of round-trip airfare to Athens
• train fare to and from Ritsona
• necessary expenses for two members of the Community of Living Traditions to volunteer at Ritsona Refugee Camp for one month

One volunteer is departing November 13th, and the other will depart as soon as funds are raised to purchase a ticket. 

Since the start of the horrific civil war and proxy wars in Syria, 5 million people have fled the country with more than one million crossing the treacherous Aegean Sea to Greece in pursuit of safety, peace and a new place to call home. Also many have traveled from Iraq and Afghanistan. While most moved on to Germany, Austria, Sweden and other European countries, 57,000 are stranded in refugee camps in Greece as they apply for asylum or await opportunities to resettle.

Of these, nearly 700 refugees are isolated in a remote area at the site of an old air force base in Ritsona, with no access to work and few opportunities to leave the camp. While grateful to be alive and provided with shelter and food, the number one complaint people have is that they are restless and bored out of their minds. The second is that the meals served a day in and day out by the military are degrading and unappetizing. And the third is that other than refugees, there is almost no one with whom to speak Arabic to discuss the world outside the camp and share personal struggles.  

As members of the Community of Living Traditions at Stony Point Center, which specializes in the provision of “radical hospitality”, we seek to alleviate the plight of refugees at Ritsona Camp through the delivery of meals and supplies with humility and a “fundamental openness to learning about, understanding, and potentially being changed by the other”. And while we can’t change the food, we can speak Arabic and serve it with love in our hearts, open ears, ready smiles and, when appropriate, empathic tears. God willing, we look forward to the opportunity to share with refugees their experiences, challenges, and triumphs. And we look forward to bringing their voices and stories back to the United States, so that we may better collaborate to respond to their appeals for help, universal human rights and to live in peace.

Here's our community holding up pillowcases we made that say #GiveRefugeesRest, which were sent to 31 governors as part of a Fellowship of Reconciliation campaign to urge elected officials to welcome refugees.

About The Community of Living Traditions

The Community of Living Traditions has a track record of humanitarian outreach and social justice work which includes:

·        Hosting at Stony Point Center 115 neighbors who were victims of Hurricane Sandy for extended lengths of time;

·        Sending five multi-faith delegations to Ferguson, MO to assist the Fellowship of Reconciliation in supporting the Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson;

·        Volunteer work with Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Palestine, Jordan, and Turkey;

·        sending a multi-faith delegation to Standing Rock, North Dakota to stand in solidarity with the Sioux Nation in nonviolent protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline (that's our Co-Director in the middle below, getting arrested for praying on public property in front of the Governor's mansion in Bismarck, North Dakota).

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Please donate to the campaign. No amount is too small!