| Liberian bishop seeks peace, relief for country in need By Joretta PurdueUnited Methodist News Service  International peacekeepers are beginning to arrive in Liberia, but its United Methodist bishop said his country still desperately needs relief.
People are starving. Children are dying. Medication is not available, Bishop John Innis said, communicating from Worcester, Mass., shortly after arriving in the United States Aug. 4. The Liberian bishop has been living in exile in Ghana for safety reasons, as violence in his West African homeland has escalated. The pastors and lay people of the church in Monrovia, Liberias capital, and Buchanan City have been without food for weeks, the bishop said. I hope with the peacekeepers moving into Monrovia, there can be ways to get money to my family and our suffering pastors and lay people, said the bishop, who is acting president of the Liberia Council of Churches. The current fighting in Monrovia has caused a catastrophic humanitarian problem, the Rev. John S.M. Russell wrote to the bishop July 29. Scores of civilians are dying daily. Homes are being looted and destroyed. Thousands of persons are being uprooted from their homes and are being displaced in churches, schools, orphanages and other areas. The people of Monrovia are experiencing an acute shortage of food, water, medicine and fuel in and around the city, Russell said. In addition, outbreaks of diarrhea, cholera and other diseases have claimed many lives, he added. Innis left a nephew in charge at the episcopal residence, where 17 people are living. The nephew has said they are out of food and have no way to get more. A seven-member team of U.S. Marines landed in Monrovia Aug. 6 to provide support to the West African peacekeepers, who began arriving a few days earlier. Meanwhile, the United Methodist Committee on Relief has been responding to the need for humanitarian aid by supporting work in Liberia of two ecumenical partners: Church World Service and the Action by Churches Together, said the Rev. Paul Dirdak, who heads UMCOR. UMCOR already has contributed to Church World Service airlifts into Liberia, and it is packing a container of supplies at its Louisiana warehouse for shipment. Dirdak is raising funds to support an outpatient clinic for the next three years, following the destruction of the churchs Ganta Hospital. He said UMCOR also hopes to open a maternity clinic at the site. UMCORs foreign staff in Liberia, which had evacuated the country, is ready to go back in with staff of the U.S. Agency for International Developments Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, Dirdak said. Both groups are waiting in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Dirdak cited Sierra Leone as an example of a country where peace efforts are working in the wake of civil war. The peace process has worked very well in Sierra Leone, Dirdak said. As soon as the British made a very modest contribution of support to the United Nations forces in Sierra Leone, things in Sierra Leone started getting better right away, and theyve never stopped getting better. That kind of intervention from a closely related outside nation has been proven to work in a number of cases and worked very effectively, he said. He supports a similar intervention in Liberia by the United States. Contributions to the relief effort may be designated for UMCORs Liberia Emergency, Advance #150300, and dropped in church collection plates or sent to the Baltimore-Washington Conference Treasurer, 7178 Columbia Gateway Drive, Columbia, MD 21046-2132. Credit-card donors can go online to http://gbgm-umc.org/ umcor/emergency/Liberia.stm or call (800) 554-8583. | 
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