Courtney Harvey is appalled that the world is not responding to the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

"After World War II, we said never again," said Harvey, a staff member at the Lancaster Theological Seminary. "Yet here we are again. It's a crisis of global conscience."

"To me the outrage is the silence," said LTS alumna Jacquelyn Lingelbach. "As we are speaking right now, people are dying."

Megan Malick, a LTS second-year master of divinity student, is incensed that so many African people are dying of malnutrition.

Since early 2003, according to the Associated Press, the campaign of ethnic cleansing has claimed more than 200,000 lives (some reports have the number as high as 400,000) and displaced an estimated 2.5 million civilians into refugee camps, living in makeshift tents in Darfur and neighboring countries.

The conflict over resources, such as water rights, is an attempt by the Janjaweed militia, supported by the government and representing a nomadic tribe, to wipe out a tribe of farmers.

To aid the victims of the conflict, including many orphans, the seminary, 555 W. James St., will launch "Tents of Hope" in community services in a tent on the seminary lawn at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday.

The project, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, was founded this year by Tim Nonn, a writer, poet and member of Petaluma UCC in Petaluma, Calif. Other denominations and religious groups support the project, which has quickly spread across the country and this week expanded to Canada.

Malick, 31, introduced the yearlong project to the seminary and heads a committee of students leading the local effort, with help from staff and alumni, including Harvey and Lingelbach. She also heads the seminary's social justice and action committee.

The former Pequea Valley Middle School English teacher said she has a passion for social justice issues and community outreach and is deeply concerned about immigrants, refugees and the homeless.

As its name suggests, "Tents of Hope" has a spiritual aspect, conveyed in art.

At the services, community groups participating in the project will receive 12-by-24-inch canvas tent panels — one per group — to paint with messages of peace, hope and healing.

Each group will pledge to raise at least $50, and preferably much more, for humanitarian aid agencies that provide food, shelter and medicine, such as Church World Service, American Jewish World Service and Lutheran World Relief.

People who cannot make the services may make a pledge and pick up a panel — 90 pieces will be available — at the seminary's Leadership NOW office on the lower level of the Lark Building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, Nov. 30. The tent will be up all week.

In the spring, the panels will be stitched together by the manufacturer into an 8-by-10-foot tent.

Malick envisions the Lancaster tent as a Pennsylvania Dutch quilt, with each patch designed to express compassion for the homeless Darfur people.

The tent will be dedicated and pledges received in services at the seminary at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday, April 24.

On Friday and Saturday, Sept. 5-6, the tent will join a "Gathering of Tents," on the National Mall and in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Nonn anticipates there will be at least 500 tents at the gathering — perhaps even 1,000. After the gathering, the tents will be sent to Darfur refugees. Aid workers are not allowed in Darfur.

Malick said she hopes the project also will have a local impact, uniting disparate people in a common cause.

She anticipates groups will represent not only congregations, but also schools, neighborhoods and others.

"I see it as ecumenical and bigger than churches," she said. "People who don't attend church feel strongly about humanitarian issues."

To raise funds for the project, the seminary plans a number of events throughout the school year.

A penny war recently raised $400. The lucky winner will get to spend a night in a tent on the seminary lawn — in winter.

Also, all proceeds from the school's Winter Gala at the end of the month will benefit "Tents of Hope."

Malick said she hopes the other groups also will do the same. Her home church, Maytown Reformed UCC, hopes to raise $1,000 in a special offering.

Nonn, who has a young son, said when he first heard about the genocide in Darfur, he didn't want to listen because it was so depressing. He said he needed to stay hopeful for his son.

Hope, he thought, "was like a glass of water in my heart ... I thought hope could be drained from me," he said in a phone interview.

But his outrage over the genocide — and the lack of outrage by world leaders — overrode his fears.

And during a recent 40-day, cross-country speaking tour for "Tents," he learned that hope is like a muscle.

"You have to exercise it," he said. "You have to do it yourself. You can't pay someone to work out for you. You do it by being in relationships with others in this cause.

"I'm more hopeful now than I've been in my entire life. I see hope. It's an act of despair to go into a cocoon."

CONTACT US: jkern@LNPnews.com or 481-6028

How to get involved
What: Launch of "Tents Hope" project for Darfur
When: 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday
Where: Lancaster Theological Seminary, 555 W. James St.
More information: www.tentsofhope.org