November 17, 2005
Rebuilding Lives
Survivors of Hurricane Stan’s devastating landslides find help, hope after the storm
Nearly one-third of the small Central American nation of Guatemala was devastated in early October 2005 by the more than 900 landslides that followed in the wake of Hurricane Stan. The southern coast and western highlands were hardest hit, with 669 people reported killed, 800 still missing, and an estimated 35,000 homes damaged or destroyed.
The highland town of Panajab was buried by a mudflow one-half mile wide and 20-feet thick, prompting the mayor to request that the whole village be declared a national cemetery. Survivors in neighboring Santiago Atitlan, some of whom lost their entire families, waded through knee-deep mud to find food and shelter.
Many, like 76-year-old Berta Ramirez, tried to flee from the disaster, but the large, powerful storm eventually caught up with her. Berta's home started to collapse when the rains began, and she hurriedly moved to her daughter's safer, sturdier house. But as the winds became stronger and the flood waters began to rise, Berta found her temporary haven crumbling around her. Before long her daughter's house was completely destroyed, and the family was left with nowhere to go for shelter.
As the rains and mudslides subsided, Samaritan's Purse acted quickly to bring relief to the people of Guatemala. In Santiago Atitlan and the surrounding area, we provided nearly 300 temporary shelters, one temporary school building, 1,500 household kits, and tens of thousands of pounds of rice, flour, and beans.
Berta's family was one of the hundreds to receive a temporary shelter and other essential items, including a new Bible.
"I give thanks to Jesus Christ that I have been given this new house," Berta said.
Fredi Battress Sambrana and his family were also thankful for God's provision through Samaritan's Purse. The family was left homeless when their house by the river washed away completely. They were able to escape to a local church, where they lived in cramped quarters with hundreds of others. We built a temporary shelter for the Sambrana family. Fredi and his father were so grateful they joined the Samaritan's Purse team in building temporary shelters for others.
As we continued to provide shelter and essential items in the days after the storm, another urgent need arose. There were reports of hepatitis A and cholera caused by contaminated water, which dealt a further blow to the already devastated indigenous Mayan population of the highland area. Samaritan's Purse helped restore sanitary conditions by building latrines and supplying a water system capable of purifying 10,000 gallons per day. We were also able to build a communal kitchen and a shower area to accommodate 47 families. In addition to combating disease, residents said these efforts gave them back their dignity and hope.
It will be a long, hard struggle for the people of Guatemala to rebuild their lives after the devastation of Hurricane Stan. We pray that God will continue to use Samaritan's Purse to bring aid and comfort through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God" (Psalm 146:5, NIV).
HEADLINES
Conflict in Georgia
Samaritan’s Purse staff members in Tbilisi are working with Christian partners to provide relief
A Place to Live
A Chinese woman rendered homeless by the earthquake is grateful that she now has a temporary shelter
Caring for Children
Samaritan’s Purse has provided training and emergency supplies to help care for children in Myanmar
MULTIMEDIA
March 14, 2006
Spiritual Rescue Mission
Billy and Franklin Graham bring messages of spiritual hope and renewal to the people of New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS, La. - Billy and Franklin Graham brought messages of God's everlasting love to New Orleans - and more than 1,300 committed their lives to Jesus Christ.
To a city still inundated with economic and political uncertainties six months after Hurricane Katrina, Billy Graham and Franklin Graham brought messages of spiritual hope and renewal at the New Orleans Arena March 11-12, 2006. The Grahams spoke at Celebration of Hope, one of the first major public events held in the Crescent City since Katrina struck with her category-four fury. More than 30,000 people flocked to the Arena, next door to the still badly damaged Superdome, to listen to the evangelists proclaim the sure and certain love of Jesus Christ in the midst of life's storms.
Over 1,360 made decisions for Christ during the weekend event, which was supported by 215 churches across the New Orleans metro area. Some came forward out of overflow crowds gathered in the shadow of the Superdome on Sunday as Billy Graham spoke publicly for the first time since last June in New York City.
"God loves us with an everlasting love," he said. "Christ endured physical and spiritual death so that we could be saved through faith in Him."
Spiritual 'Rescue Mission'
On Saturday evening, Franklin Graham recalled the stirring images of thousands of desperate victims being saved from the surging flood waters of Katrina.
"No one will ever forget the scenes of these people standing on roof tops, waiting to be rescued," he said. "When God sent His Son to earth, it was a rescue mission to save us from our sins. God loves New Orleans, He loves Louisiana and Texas, Mississippi and Alabama. He has not abandoned you. Tonight we all can have the hope of heaven if we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ."
Dr. David Crosby of First Baptist Church of New Orleans, the co-chairman of the Celebration of Hope committee, said the weekend's meetings laid the foundation for new beginnings in the community.
"This has surpassed all my expectations," said Crosby, whose church now has about half of its pre-Katrina attendance back. "It's really a moment filled with hope. It's giving us direction and energy to know where we need to head, and empowering us to do it."
Crosby lauded the Celebration for uniting churches in New Orleans and surrounding parishes.
"We don't want to lose the unity," he said. "We're bringing down the walls between races and denominations. This is like the opening of a blossom that will continue to grow."
Storm-Tested Faith
Despite their own woes, many who had lost everything to Katrina saw this weekend's meetings as an opportunity to share their storm-tested faith with others.
Jim Niemeyer's home was destroyed when the 17th Street canal broke, submerging much of east New Orleans under as much as 11 feet of water. The 67-year-old man signed on to the Celebration as a counselor, receiving training through the Christian Life and Witness Course to share his faith with those who came forward.
"People ask me where I see God in all this," he said. "I tell them I see the Lord in all the faith-based organizations like the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse who are reaching out to help in Jesus name. Katrina has only served to strengthen my faith."
Samaritan's Purse has been working in the New Orleans area since early October, making emergency repairs, removing debris, and cleaning out houses. Volunteers working through our Disaster Relief Units have performed over 750 mud-outs, giving the homeowners a chance to return. We also are working through churches to provide hundreds of mobile homes to needy families in Mississippi and Louisiana, including over 125 in the New Orleans area.
Nathaniel Gaten is living in one of the trailers provided by Samaritan's Purse. His home in east New Orleans was swamped by 5 1/2-feet of water.
"The Lord has provided for me in the midst of the storm," he said. "God has allowed me to reach out and share with others how He has sustained me, so others can know they're not alone."
Elsa Ravencraft lost her home to Katrina's powerful winds that shredded her roof. She is also staying in one of Samaritan's Purse's trailers and volunteered at the Celebration.
"God says we should serve Him all the time, not just when everything is wonderful," she said. "He says that we should be joyful in all circumstances."
'You Can't Look Back'
Many of those who came forward to commit their lives to Christ had experienced the full wrath of the storm. David, 83, is living with his daughter in nearby Gretna since he lost his house to the floodwaters. He came forward to rededicate his life to Jesus. "I've been knocked down by Katrina, but I'm getting back up," he said. "I have lots of hope now."
A 39-year-old man who is living with family members after his home was swept away came forward to receive Christ as Savior, as did a 17-year-old whose home is being rebuilt following the storm.
Boothville/Venice Fire Chief Ernest "Noonie" Bourgeois said Katrina was like an "atomic bomb" that went off. They lost their home to the floodwaters, but his wife, Ida, said their faith has been renewed.
"We go to bed every night thanking the Lord for the day we had, and we wake up every morning thanking Him for the day ahead," she said. "You have to look forward, you can't look back."
Daniel Genter summed up the meetings' faith-building effect for the city.
"The Celebration of Hope is definitely of God," he said. "The Christian community has really stepped up and it is what is lifting us up now. The churches have fed and clothed the people, and now we're sharing the Gospel with them. This city needs to be born again."
HEADLINES
Finding Spiritual Freedom
Samaritan’s Purse equips a Sri Lankan church to reach out to inmates
Bringing Good News to North Korea
Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham preached at the largest Protestant church in North Korea
Scriptures for Sudan
Distribution of 250,000 Bibles launches more than 8,000 study groups and helps strengthen local churches
MULTIMEDIA
Tornadoes cut a wide swath of destruction across northwestern Tennessee, damaging or destroying hundreds of houses.
April 7, 2006
Relief for Tornado Victims
Samaritan’s Purse sends supplies and volunteers to Tennessee to help people recover from deadly tornadoes
BRADFORD, Tenn. - Samaritan's Purse is working alongside church teams to repair roofs on hundreds of houses damaged by the killer tornadoes that struck northwestern Tennessee on April 2.
Samaritan's Purse sent two truckloads of heavy-duty roofing plastic, material otherwise not available in the two hardest-hit counties, Dyer and Gibson. That's enough to make emergency repairs on the 400 houses that suffered damaged roofs.
The work is being done by teams of volunteers, including a team from Virginia organized by Samaritan's Purse and others from Englewood Baptist Church in Jackson, where Samaritan's Purse provided assistance following a 2003 tornado.
About 200 houses were destroyed in the 25-mile path of the tornadoes, and 24 people were killed in Dyer County and Gibson County. Rooftops were ripped off by strong winds and some homes were torn off their foundations Sunday as families huddled together for safety during the storms. Disaster officials say it may have been the deadliest storm in Tennessee history.
Because of the strong response by volunteers in Tennessee, Samaritan's Purse is not sending additional work teams into the region. However, volunteers are still needed on the Gulf Coast, where Samaritan's Purse is working on two locations in New Orleans and two in Mississippi to repair damage from Hurricane Katrina.
HEADLINES
A Helping Hand
Volunteers are willing to do the “dirty work” to bring aid and comfort to people affected by the Midwest floods
Responding Across the Midwest
Samaritan’s Purse sends help to people affected by devastating floods in Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin
Renewed Hope
Help from Samaritan’s Purse provides evidence of God’s goodness to a flood victim in Indiana
MULTIMEDIA
April 13, 2006
Faith Strengthened In Tsunami’s Aftermath
A Church in Sri Lanka Discovers That Not Even Giant Waves Could Sink Their Faith or Tear Apart Their Bond of Love
KALMUNAI, Sri Lanka - Fifty members of the Kalmunai Assembly of God lost their lives in the devastating tsunami that struck Sri Lanka the day after Christmas in 2004. Most of the survivors lost their homes. But in the aftermath of this tragedy, church members have found renewed hope in God and a deeper love for one another.
Rajini, a 36-year-old widow, knows this better than anyone. When she lost her husband 11 years ago, she depended heavily on her mother to help raise the family. But tragedy struck again when Rajini's mother drowned in the tsunami waves that crashed ashore and destroyed their home.
Although her life and that of her daughter, 18-year-old Kurushanthi, were spared that day, she knew that difficult times lay ahead. Many people were left wondering how they could ever recover from such a tragedy. But despite the grief and hardships, she found peace and joy.
"Why are you still happy? People ask me that all time," she said. "They want to know my secret to happiness."
Her answer is simple. Rajini realized that the things she had put her faith in before were now gone. The tsunami had taken both her mother and her home. She began to understand that she would have to look elsewhere for her strength.
"Before the tsunami, I depended on my mother for help." Rajini said. "But now it is God who will provide for me. He gave me the strength to protect my child. The provision of God was there to meet me."
Rajini's change of heart did not go unnoticed by other surviving family members. One aunt, a Hindu, began attending church with her following the tsunami and recently became a Christian.
While Rajini and other members of her congregation never will have their lost family members back, they are at least able to begin rebuilding their lives in the safety and comfort of a new home. Samaritan's Purse is helping build 46 new homes for families in this church. These houses will be larger and stronger than those they had before the tsunami.
During the construction phase, 30 families have decided to live together in an intentional community of tsunami survivors, united by their faith in Christ. They constructed a temporary camp with small shelters for each family.
Residents say that although the living conditions are usually crowded and not ideal, the very closeness - and their shared experience of grief and loss - has deepened their appreciation and love for one another.
This fellowship, according to one church member, has become much more meaningful over time and people are developing a deeper hunger for Christ. Regular prayer meetings throughout the week have become a place for people to share their grief, joy, and renewed faith in a loving God.
Another neighbor admitted that even though she is looking forward to a new home from Samaritan's Purse, she will miss the physical and spiritual closeness and doesn't want to lose this special bond with her church family.
Rajini cherishes the memory of her mother and regrets that she cannot be here to share her newfound joy and fellowship with other believers. But she is steadfast in the knowledge that she must remember to rely on Jesus Christ during the storms of life.
"God has helped us face this last year," she said with absolute certainty. "I tell people that every moment of this last year God has been here to help me. I know it is God who will provide for me."
The congregation in Kalmunai is grateful for all the assistance Samaritan's Purse has brought them, and they ask that we continue to pray for their church and community.
HEADLINES
Conflict in Georgia
Samaritan’s Purse staff members in Tbilisi are working with Christian partners to provide relief
A Place to Live
A Chinese woman rendered homeless by the earthquake is grateful that she now has a temporary shelter
Caring for Children
Samaritan’s Purse has provided training and emergency supplies to help care for children in Myanmar
MULTIMEDIA
June 5, 2006
Responding To Indonesia’s Killer Earthquake
Samaritan’s Purse teams are helping vulnerable survivors on the island of Java
On May 27, 2006, a 6.3-magnitude earthquake rocked the Indonesian island of Java, killing over 5,800 people, flattening 84,000 houses, and severely damaging 129,000 more. Area hospitals were overwhelmed by the multitude of injured, and tens of thousands of families were left homeless, destitute, and desperate.
Samaritan's Purse immediately mobilized our local resources and ministry partners to respond to the needs of victims. Our staff was on the ground distributing plastic tarps, blankets, and other emergency materials within 24 hours of the disaster, and we are continuing to work through local suppliers to bring desperately needed aid to the most devastated areas.
We have established relief operations in the hard-hit Bantul district, south of the city of Yogyakarta, where the majority of houses have been completely destroyed. Our teams have begun distributing survival kits that typically include heavy-duty plastic for shelter, a small camp stove, kitchen utensils, buckets, mosquito nets, blankets, and sleeping mats. The immediate goal is to provide kits to 3,000 families, reaching 18,000 people.
Many survivors have set up makeshift shelters on top of the debris that used to be their homes. To give these people a clean foundation to rebuild, our staff is working with local Christians to remove the rubble littering the area.
In the village of Bauwaran, many families are living in bamboo-framed tents covered with blue plastic from Samaritan's Purse. The grateful village leader offered the only building left standing to serve as a base for a group of Papuan pastors volunteering with us. "We were greeted like old friends," said our project leader in Bantul.
Samaritan's Purse is also addressing the urgent need for clean water. Hundreds of wells have been filled with debris and probably contaminated, and most are not functional. In addition to helping restore wells, we are providing two large water filters, including one for a hospital in Bantul. Each filter can produce enough safe water to supply the daily needs of 3,000 people.
This was the fourth major earthquake to hit Indonesia in the past 17 months, including the December 2004 tsunami that left over 200,000 dead or missing.
HEADLINES
Conflict in Georgia
Samaritan’s Purse staff members in Tbilisi are working with Christian partners to provide relief
A Place to Live
A Chinese woman rendered homeless by the earthquake is grateful that she now has a temporary shelter
Caring for Children
Samaritan’s Purse has provided training and emergency supplies to help care for children in Myanmar
MULTIMEDIA
June 7, 2006
A New Hope for Vulnerable Children
Prescription for Hope provides loving care for boys and girls made orphans by HIV/AIDS
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27, NIV).
Fourteen-year-old Patricia and her three siblings were in dire straits when their plight was discovered by a Samaritan's Purse team in Mozambique.
Their father had died of AIDS five years earlier. Their mother was in the last stages of the disease, unable to care for the children. Patricia and her sister spent most of their days working in the field in an effort to keep the family from starvation. None of the children were enrolled in school because there was no money for the necessary fees and supplies.
Prescription for Hope, the Samaritan's Purse HIV/AIDS ministry, immediately intervened to provide food for the family. We also registered the children for school and gave them the materials they needed for their classes. Patricia is now taking part in sewing lessons taught by a local Samaritan's Purse worker.
"My life is much better now because I have people to help me," Patricia said. "I used to be so worried and sad because my mother is very sick, and I didn't know what I could do to help my family. But now there are people caring for us. We are also going to school, which we like very much."
The first case of HIV in Mozambique was diagnosed in 1986. Twenty years later, the disease has devastated the country, with HIV infection rates reaching over 20 percent in some areas.
The United Nations estimates that more than 300,000 of the nation's children have been orphaned by the disease, and at least half a million more are living with sick caregivers. In a place already ravaged by poverty and war, these vulnerable children are left with little hope as they struggle to survive.
Patricia and her siblings are attending schools within their own community. But for some orphans and vulnerable children, attending class requires a long, arduous journey. Felix, an HIV/AIDS orphan with hopes of continuing his secondary education, was one of those who faced this obstacle.
When the district Director of Education waived secondary school fees for orphans at the request of Samaritan's Purse, Prescription for Hope staff successfully registered Felix and several other orphans to attend a secondary school. However, the school was 30 miles from their homes, making their dream of receiving an education seem almost impossible.
Prescription for Hope staff and teachers from the school met with local pastors and described the difficulty faced by these children. Without hesitation the church leaders came to their aid, agreeing to take the orphans into their homes. The children are able to go to school, and more importantly, they are being nurtured and supported by loving Christian families.
"I really like living with the pastor," Felix said. "He is very kind to me. I promised him that I am going to work hard in school, so I can be a Good Samaritan someday too."