Church of the Brethren continues tsunami relief efforts.

As the estimates of the numbers of people killed by the Dec. 26 tsunami topped 226,000, the Church of the Brethren continued its efforts for the survivors, supporting Church World Service (CWS), the global humanitarian arm of the National Council of Churches. On Jan. 19 Indonesia added tens of thousands of the missing to the estimates of the death toll.

Brethren relief efforts since the last Newsline report included a new grant from the General Board's Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF), more shipments of relief supplies from the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md., and a call for Gift of the Heart School Kits. Many congregations and districts also have been collecting relief supplies and gathering donations.

Brethren staff took part in a conference call with CWS denominational partners on Jan. 13, in which CWS director Rick Augsberger called in from Thailand. He referred to the destruction as "indescribable," reported Jane Yount, disaster response coordinator for the General Board. Because this disaster was so intense and widespread, all phases of recovery will be significantly lengthened, she said.

Augsberger said that 500 family shelter kits have been distributed in Sri Lanka and another 1,000 have been requested. In Indonesia, CWS has two medical doctors working in Banda Aceh and four psychosocial care staff working as well. CWS Indonesia staff are participating in food distribution and identifying communities yet in need of aid. A second airlift of CWS material resources has been made, and another major shipment of relief supplies will be airlifted to Singapore. An additional 50,000 health kits have been requested for the survivors, "and thanks to the generous response by the US churches, this order can be met," Yount said. "School kits also will be in great demand in several months as schools begin to be rebuilt."

Donations to EDF are supporting the CWS response as well as shipments of material goods from the Brethren Service Center. Recent shipments include 50 cartons of medical supplies to Indonesia on behalf of Lutheran World Relief and 100 cartons of Interchurch Medical Assistance (IMA) Medicine Boxes and three skids of dry food to Indonesia on behalf of IMA, CWS, and the Presbyterian Church. The shipments were combined on one flight along with 1,512 Relief Kits from Mennonite Central Committee. Staff of the General Board's Service Ministries also began packing another 50 IMA Medicine Boxes for Thailand. In other shipments, the center put together a container bound for Sudan with 40 cartons of Gift of the Heart Layette Kits, 70 cartons of Gift of the Heart Health Kits, and 450 cases of canned chicken.

On Jan. 12 a $10,000 EDF grant was approved to aid the Church of North India's (CNI) tsunami relief efforts in the Car Nicobar islands. "We wish to express our concern, support, and sympathies directly with the Church of North India as brothers and sister in Christ," wrote Stan Noffsinger, the General Board's general secretary. The Church of the Brethren has had a relationship with CNI since Brethren churches in India joined with CNI in 1970. The area of India where most Brethren live was not affected by the tsunami.

CNI reported that the "Car Nicobar group of islands has been so completely devastated by tsunami that they would have to be built from scratch." The CNI Disaster Management Committee is overseeing rescue and relief work in Port Blair and Car Nicobar, dispatching relief workers and offering material aid such as food, tarps, medicine, clothing, and bleach powder. CNI is running two relief camps which are supporting 4,000 people. CNI itself suffered terrible losses. Out of 52 CNI pastors in the affected diocese, eight lost their lives. CNI's 33 buildings in the diocese also have been either damaged or destroyed.

"I am grateful to each one of you for your prayers and your expression of solidarity, which have been a great source of encouragement for us in the Church of North India as we have a gigantic task ahead of us to reconstruct a diocese which has lost everything," wrote Enos Das Pradhan, CNI's general secretary, in a Jan. 10 update. For more information see www.cnitsunamirelief.org.

Emergency Response/Service Ministries also has publicized an urgent request from CWS for Gift of the Heart School Kits. The request follows a request for Gift of the Heart Health Kits. Needs stemming from the tsunami are prompting CWS to ask for help to replenish the supply of school kits, which will be used first in temporary schools likely to be housed in tents. Information about assembling kits has been sent to district offices and is available at www.brethren.org.

For more information about the Church of the Brethren relief effort see www.brethren.org. For more information about CWS work see www.churchworldservice.org. The National Council of Churches (NCC) also is posting audio, photos, and reflections from NCC envoys to Sri Lanka and Indonesia at www.ncccusa.org.

Source: 01/21/2005 Newsline
top