News at ABWE
Cyclone Sidr Relief
November 23, 2007
The Effects of Sidr
By now you have heard of the destruction of Super Cyclone (hurricane) Sidr, which hit Bangladesh last Thursday night, November 15. Strong 150 mph winds with a tidal surge of about 15 feet battered the south western region of the country. By the grace of God, our workers and ministries in Chittagong and the southeast were spared the brunt of the storm. Super Cyclone Sidr was one of the ten fiercest cyclones to hit Bangladesh in the last 131 years. Some reports are indicating that this storm was as severe as the cyclones that killed 500,000 people in 1970 and 140,000 in 1991.
As the storm moved inland, it destroyed homes and livestock, and ravaged 95% of the crops in 11 districts that were soon to be harvested. The first reports indicated that fatalities were in the double digits. By Tuesday, November 20, the official report had increased to nearly 3,200 human fatalities with an expectation that the number could reach 5,000–10,000 once all the facts are known.
International Relief Efforts
The Bangladesh military and large international relief agencies began moving in as quickly as possible. Roads and rivers blocked by debris made the task very difficult. For the first few days, search and rescue operations were conducted from navy ships and food and safe water was delivered to survivors by helicopters. The primary tasks involved burying the dead and clearing and repairing roads so that relief caravans could get supplies into the areas of need. The United States government responded quickly to express condolences and reach out to deliver assistance. USAID is partnering with Save the Children, Care, and World Vision to do relief distribution and reconstruction works. Two US Marine C-130 Hercules with teams prepared to aid with medical services joined the efforts. Two amphibious assault ships equipped with 20 helicopters each, hovercraft, emergency relief supplies, and medical and emergency evacuation teams were dispatched early in the week. The UN, World Bank, UNICEF, World Food Program, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Britain, EU, Australia, Switzerland, India, China, Pakistan, and others are also sending aid for the most affected areas.
ABWE Relief Effort
An ABWE national partner in the area impacted by the storm ministers through literature-lending libraries, free schools, and church plants. In his area, although many homes were destroyed and most of the crops were lost, there were no fatalities among his people. After several days of prayer and research, as well as further consultation, our ABWE team sensed the Lord’s leading to assist this dear brother. He is poised to provide compassionate relief in Christ’s name to those in his ministry areas. He has already assembled a ten-person team and has been feeding people from his own limited resources.
Initially, we want to assist this partner and several others in providing food relief to families. After this stage we will consider further assistance for tin for roofs as the Lord provides. Our ABWE team has met and determined the details of these two phases, and we hope you will pray about participating with your prayers and gifts.
Phase I will consist of direct relief to individuals. We will distribute packages containing rice, lentils, oil, a blanket, and a hurricane lamp to 500 families in several villages of the crisis zone as soon as our Bengali partner can put the packages together. If donations are sufficient, we can double the number served by this relief effort. We will also assist local volunteers to do emergency repairs to houses in those villages. We have already advanced $8,000 for this purpose, and more is needed. Your gifts will be important to complete repairs on more houses.
Phase II will be a longer-term effort to replace roofs on other houses. Depending on available funds, we may need to replace some bamboo walls with tin in order to provide a more suitable residence for families that will be less vulnerable to storm damage. We estimate a need of $80,000 to $160,000 for this phase, but we will do as much as we can as the Lord uses partners like you to provide the funding.
Please Pray
Please pray this relief effort is carried out. Intensive efforts will begin Monday, November 26, and one missionary will be traveling to this affected area to see the needs firsthand. Pray for a clear testimony of the love of Christ among a people with desperate needs. They have already shown tremendous resilience but many are still in shock. Pray for the logistics of purchasing and delivering the relief. Pray for the health of the relief team members. Right now our partner knows of no faithful believers in an area about 30 miles away where there were many fatalities. Once his people are helped, he would like to take his large boat down the river to see how God might use his team in that area. He feels compelled to make contacts there in this time of extreme need.
Pray for Bangladesh. With so much devastation food is going to be scarce this winter. The cost of everything is expected to go up from the already high prices that resulted from the major flooding several months ago. Pray also for the many people whose crops were lost. In the face of such widespread loss just before harvest, it is especially difficult to recover.
Donations
US Donors
Checks should be marked “Cyclone Relief” and sent to ABWE Donor Services, P.O. Box 8585, Harrisburg, PA., 17105.
Canadian Donors
For online gifts click the “Donate Now” button on the ABWE Canada home page, then choose Bangladesh Cyclone Relief from the drop-down list.
To send your tax-deductible gift by mail, please print this form and mail it along with your gift to:
ABWE Canada
34-980 Adelaide Street South
London, ON N6E 1R3
More Information
For more information about these efforts, you may email Jim at jlong@abwe.org.