Life is wonderful at the Centre! Kids are happy and genuinely enjoy each other’s company as well as visitors from Aus. They sing and pray with gusto and happily join in games and other fun activities. After dinner the boys love to play soccer in the front yard with an old ball and some bamboo poles that have been lashed together to make 2 very low goals. Some of the girls join in some afternoons and seemed quite skilled also.
Rev Mukunda was our AFA “earthquake man” with his organisation TRANSFORMATION NEPAL. We sent more than $105,000 and helped around 10,000 people – and we will stay in Nepal in partnership with Bhutan next door. Nepal is ripe for Christ with its 15-17% church growth year after year. Yet the church is still in its infancy in Nepal. The challenge is enormous...
Here are some images of the Flood Relief Trip to the Paletwa area, South West Myanmar, with and through the Myanmar Lutheran Church supported by AFA funds. There are no roads in this mountainous area, only creeks, rivers and walking tracks. No relief had reached here before.
We are in almost daily contact with our friends in Myanmar – those who have been nearest and dearest to us for many years – people in three churches, friends who are heartbroken about what they see before their very eyes: wholesale destruction in vast areas, with hundreds of thousands of people thrown into desperation and poverty. Farmers overnight become homeless, landless, refugees, peasants. Many of these are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The implementation of this emergency relief response was well organized and led by two MLC staff from Yangon office and two pastors from Paletwa Myanmar Lutheran Church. By God’s grace, this relief response implementation was ended with a good impact to the affected families. This relief arm may keep them to have food security for 15 days depending on the number of the families.
On March 28, 2015 a severe fight started between Arakan Army and Government Army at Praingcho village in Paletwa Township. The fight threatened the lives of many people and the villagers had to flee to other place called the Kalardan River near the Kyewtaung village. They took some clothes and blankets, but did not have time to bring rice and other food supplies.
Transformation Nepal (TFN) has responded with relief action in many towns and villages, among others in Dhadingbesi, Dhading district. The coordination and cooperation of local churches made this easy. The pastor there was particularly active.
When the mega earthquake hit Nepal on 25th April 2015, we were in the church service. Suddenly the church building started shaking, I announced everyone to stay inside praying and covering the children. It was about a minute for 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Just after this, we asked everyone to evacuate the church building and come to an open place.
I am 73, a granny, with two grandchildren to look after. Their parents are dead. I live for the kids. I had a small house made of wood, stone and mud, but April 25, 2015 changed my life. The mega earthquake snatched away everything, no house now, no shelter, nothing.
When God blessed us with my little child, we were so happy. But the earthquake of 25 April has taken all the happiness away from us. The earthquake has taken our home. Now all that is left is the debris of our house.
I am Nirmala from the Nuwakot district. I had three children - two daughters and one son. My husband is a labourer. He is doing bricklaying helping to build houses in Nuwakot. His work is the only source of income for our family.
I wish to share with you now the astounding news that about $100,100 have been donated to our Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund. All this money is in Nepal and has been used weeks ago except that the last $10,000 is now being used for follow-up work – like enabling children go back to school, supplying stationary for them and helping individual families with special longer-term needs.
How do you imagine Mongolia to be? I had fantasised this country to be a wild untamed place of Chinggis Khan heritage with horsemen galloping across the Gobi Desert; gers (those little round white tent-things) dotting the rolling green steppe and rugged mountain peaks forming an imposing backdrop.
On the night of my arrival in Kathmandu after seeing some of the destruction sights I was ready to fly home. I REALLY HAD ENOUGH ALREADY: death and decay all around I see. Under those piles of rubble, were there still unrecovered bodies? Bits of clothing (like filthy rags) still visible among the rocks and pieces of cement – and people quietly walking over the debris of what may have been their homes, still searching for ‘something’, maybe for peace.
The first stage of supplying urgent relief necessary for survival can be considered completed. We did all we could to help thousands of people in three central provinces with food, medicines, shelter and other items.
It’s all history now but the tragic consequences are not: 16,000 thousand dead and countless lives turned upside down. Media attention has now gone but depression and hopelessness for thousands, if anything, is getting worse. You see, grieving in depth has only just began. Who would have thought that AFA was going to get involved in Nepal?
After a promising start, disaster struck! Or so it seemed. Plans were to crisscross Vietnam from north to south teaching the Word of God and spreading the love of Jesus. In one province the police lay in wait, broke up the seminar that involved 40 people, interrogated Neville for hours, then took his passport away and fined him more than $1,000 dollars. High alarm! Emergency! Sleepless nights in Canada, Australia and Vietnam.
Nias is that fascinating Island in the Indian Ocean mentioned in the Travelogue article. This is what some of the AFA scholarship holders at Sundermann Seminary said during the recent visit of Pastor August Fricke.
It's nearly forgotten already. The pictures on the TV have stopped as the cameras and journalists have left the country. And so the charity dollar is drying up also. People respond emotionally based. Nepal? That was yesterday - off the agenda now.
Overwhelmed by need and shaken by the daily terror experienced by our brothers and sisters in Nepal, I lost my composure. I lost my calm. I don't know what to do. I wake up in the middle of the night seeing in front of my own eyes the agony of Nepal.