What to Do When Terror Strikes Far from Home

This post, written by Kate Wiebe, originally was published on March 22, 2016, on our previous website. 

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As our hearts ache, again, following another terrorist attack, many of us feel that restlessness that forms in the aftermath of atrocity. What can we do? How can we help? ​Many of us are far away and feel so much sorrow. We are challenged, again, to know how best to encourage, support, and enact care. 

Here's a few practices that ICTG staff, directors, advisors, and colleagues have found most useful following human-caused disasters that occur far away: 

• Spread love locally
  • Gather together for prayer, singing, and lighting candles
  • Spend this week expressing love to your loved ones
  • Reach out to your neighbors with acts of goodness and kindness
  • Extend acts of care to strangers you meet this week

• Spread love throughout the country and the world
  • Call a loved one or an old friend you haven't talked to in awhile to share how much you still care
  • Gather with family and friends to create preparedness kits or to create care kits for a nonprofit that collects them for sudden events like this one (a few examples can be found at nvoad.org)
  • Make a donation to your favorite nonprofit in honor of those who have died. Many denomination relief agencies are combining and sending monies together to help with foreign aid – give to your denomination's relief agency and make a greater impact. 
  • ICTG makes resources available online, which you can find by browsing this website. 

With these acts you get involved in countering terror locally and globally. These acts make a difference. Be a blessing this week. 

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