Omnia Institute for Contextual Leadership

Happy New Year from Sri Lanka.

The Sinhala and Tamil New Year began this morning at the auspicious time of 9:32 a.m.

In the auspicious time table, the start of the New Year was preceded by a time of reflection and religious observance. I was pleansantly surprised that it ends with an auspicious time for planting trees.

More on my visit to Sri Lanka and the IP teams later.

OMNIA is in Cameroon this week, where Shanta is conducting interfaith training. Last week he trained several teams in N. E. Nigeria.

Work is going well there!

Shanta Premawardhana
Abare Kallah

Sri Lanka suffered a devastating blow from Cyclone Ditwah on November 27th. Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe, OMNIA's National Coordinator in Sri Lanka invites you to an Accompaniment Circle on Sri Lanka where we will listen to the stories, and strategize about how all of us can help rebuild. This will be on Thursday, January 8th, 8:00 -- 9:30 a.m. (US/Canada Central Standard Time).

Please click the link to register. Zoom will send you a meeting link.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/Gwok8uijTBy0fkS_IOxz1A

Here's a portion of the Bishop's letter:

"More than 2.3 million people drawn from all 25 districts of Sri Lanka were affected by the cyclone. At one stage over 230,000 people were sheltered in over 1400 safety centres. Those numbers have now dropped, since some have returned to their homes or moved elsewhere, but the number of refugee camps and people remaining in them is still very high.

Roads were washed away, bridges collapsed or were twisted out of shape, railway lines were hanging in the air, houses were destroyed, washed away or covered in mud, reservoirs overflowed and the physical damage was extensive. Rain and landslides continued into December, and life almost came to a standstill. At least 647 people have died, more than 200 still remain missing. More than 5,000 homes were completely destroyed with another 86,000 partly damaged.

The damage to agriculture was extensive, with fertile lands now either washed away or covered with rock, mixed with heavy soil. Homes are lost with family belongings. Schools did not open and parents have lost their livelihoods. Water and electricity were interrupted and in some places have not yet restored. Malnutrition is looming over, as is the possibility of outbreaks of disease. The list continues to be endless.

Our Home Gardening Program created during the pandemic, which enabled our poor and marginalized communities, especially in the plantation sector grow their own food, and supplement their income by selling excess produce was completely destroyed and now has to be rebuilt from scratch.

At the top of our priority list is the restoration of this program. This is a matter of livelihood. Villagers will need fresh land preparation, seeds and tender plants in addition to training in Agriculture, to start over. I look forward to working with our Climate Justice Working Group, to get expert advice on sustaining their cultivation, even amidst natural disasters.

On behalf of all those affected, bereaved families and those undergoing trauma, we invite you to journey with us to alleviate fear, hopelessness and uncertainty in the minds of those affected. We hope to engage in long-term restoration and rehabilitation of physical structures as well as facilitating the return of our fellow sisters and brothers back on their feet.

Please join us for an Accompaniment Circle on Sri Lanka on Thursday, January 8th where we will learn about the situation on the ground from local experts and think about how we can respond."

After 8 years of experience working in Northeast Nigeria, I want to let you know OMNIA Institute's perspective on the US bombing of Sokoto State in Northwestern Nigeria. President Trump said that it was “to protect the country’s Christian population from the terrorist group (ISIS).” While it is true that Christians are being killed in Nigeria's violence, facts are that Muslims and many others are also being killed.

I wrote an opinion article, entitled "Trump’s Nigeria strikes: A misleading narrative" in which I question Mr. Trump's real motives. It was published yesterday in Baptist News Global. Recognizing that extremist terrorism cannot be stopped by using state terrorism, I call on all of us to resist violence and engage in peacemaking, for which we have a demonstrably effective vehicle: Interfaith Peacemaker Teams.

Trump’s Nigeria strikes: A misleading narrative On Christmas Day, President Donald Trump announced the United States had launched airstrikes in Sokoto State in Northwestern Nigeria "to protect the country's Christian population from the terrorist group (ISIS)." Although Nigeria's Foreign Ministry acknowledged collaboration with the U.S., many Nig...

Here a few pictures of the devastation caused by Cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka. Kandy, where we have most of our IP Teams is severely affected.

OMNIA will receive your contributions designated Sri Lanka flood relief, and forward them directly to affected families through our IP teams.

Please click the link below. Thank You!

https://crm.bloomerang.co/HostedDonation?ApiKey=pub_6427bbcf-21cf-11ea-8134-0ab2f2f28c00&WidgetId=35840

Dear Friends,
Sri Lanka is experiencing devastating floods and landslides resulting from Cyclone Ditwah, affecting more than half a million people. OMNIA's Interfaith Peacemaker Teams make up a large network of organized people in the margins in Sri Lanka--including religious leaders--who are equipped to disburse aid to those in need.

OMNIA is accepting relief donations through our online giving page. All donations will be directly forwarded to OMNIA Sri Lanka for distribution to affected people. Please note in the comments section a designation for "Sri Lanka flood relief fund." If you have questions or would like to give another way, contact [email protected].

https://crm.bloomerang.co/HostedDonation?ApiKey=pub_6427bbcf-21cf-11ea-8134-0ab2f2f28c00&WidgetId=35840

Your support and prayers are greatly needed and appreciated at this time.

Donate to OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership

Day 1
Lomé, Togo.

The Interfaith Peacemaker (IP) Teams in Togo have started a Go Fund Me page to raise funds of gari processing machines. Gari is a flour made from cassava, which is a staple food in Togo as in other parts of West Africa. This is an important way in which the IP Teams are working to aleviate food insecurity. Please support this effort.

Donate to Empowering Women Farmers in Kpome, Togo through Cassava, organized by Thomas ODonnell Hello! I’m Newlove Bobson Atiso from Kpome Vill… Thomas ODonnell needs your support for Empowering Women Farmers in Kpome, Togo through Cassava

Congratulations Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry! God’s blessings to you in this important role!

LSTC celebrates the election of Bishop Yehiel Curry (TEEM ’09, MDiv ’13) as the next Presiding Bishop of the ELCA!

From a South Side potluck to the highest leadership role in the denomination, Bishop Curry’s journey has been one of transformation, justice, and bold discipleship—and it began right here at LSTC. A TEEM visionary, mentor, board leader, and twice-elected Bishop of LSTC’s home synod (MCS) Bishop Curry reminds us: “I won’t end my career in a Bishop’s office. I’m a builder, I’m a mission developer, and I have to build it again.”

We are so proud to walk with him—then, now, and always.

Please join us for an Accompaniment Circle on Sri Lanka

Thursday, July 10, 2025, 9:00 -- 10:30 a.m. US/Canada Central Daylight Time. Click the link for the corresponding time in your time zone.
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20250710T140000&p1=64

Click the link to register. Zoom will send you a meeting link. https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/fVWMfgMqSzK8urAFsRAkEQ #/registration

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Sri Lanka's Interfaith Peacemaker (IP) Teams' Home Agriculture project was an Urgent, Relevant and Winnable action. Today, many IP Team members have home gardens and community farms. They are trained by local experts to get the best yields in the context of climate change challenges. When they have more produce than they need, they share with neighbors. Some have expanded to grow cash crops like flowers and spices, and livestock. It's 4 years since they started, and many are agricultural entrepreneurs.

Ven. Senapura Sumana Thero (pictured here with Bishop Kumara Illangasinghe our National Coordinator) is one of the leaders of this movement. He offered temple land to create crop nurseries from which IP Team members could take plants and seeds.

Last year, when OMNIA held our National Coordinators' retreat in Sri Lanka, Ven. Sumana prepared a full meal for us all by himself. He harvested the produce, cooked, set up the meal, served it and cleaned up afterwards. This was a meditative practice, he explained to me. But it was not done with somber seriousness as one might expect from a monk, but with a ready smile, jovial banter, and an abundance of generosity.

Food is an important ingredient in building interfaith relationships. Since religious communities have diverse traditions and rituals that relate to food, we engage each other as receivers and learners, in humility.

The lack of food, on the other hand, quite apart from the sheer fact of hunger, causes community to breakdown. Scarcity causes anxiety and desperation, which eventually leads to conflicts and even wars. Sri Lanka's Home Agriculture Program addressed both these: the physical hunger and the social dislocation.

Please join us at the Accompaniment Circle and learn about how Sri Lankan IP Teams made it work, and what can you take away from it for your own context. If the affirmation of pluralism, building of social cohesion and the strengthening of democracy is important in your context, IP provides a tested method to achieve them.