Persecution and Pain - Going through.... To come through
Dear Partner in the Gospel,
You may be wondering what happened to the Orissa situation and to our brothers and sisters in Orissa. The situation is the same and no improvement. Believers are still under attack. The refugee camps that are set up were attacked and the water and food were poisoned. Our believers are threatened to become Hindus otherwise they are asked to leave the village.
Our pastors who were at the conference have gone back to the state, but do not have homes to return to because the houses were burned to the ground. So what is next?
God has given a detailed plan to get engaged in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Orissa. I would like to share with you the details so that we can partner together in rebuilding individuals, families and communities. This is a long email but I trust you will take time to read it and will join us in helping our brothers and sisters.
OUR COMMITMENT IS .... TOTAL DEVELOPMENT!
Relief, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Rebuilding and Revitalization
For The Persecuted Saints!
Our overall strategic plan is "5R"-- Relief, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Rebuilding and Revitalization. The initial effort is to do relief, to respond to the crisis to meet their immediate needs to make sure that people are not starving and get them into some form of temporary shelters that will help begin the process of rehabilitation.
Imagine, suddenly, everything that you had was burned down, and all you have is what you are wearing. Imagine you don't even know how to ask for help because you are grieving over everything that was lost. Imagine the emotional loss as well as the physical loss. This was the situation of the 14 pastors who came for the conference. We did not even know that they did not have any clothes because they did not ask. When we found out everybody gave so generously.
We started the relief process by meeting with the 14 pastors and asked them their immediate need. All of them said they don't have any clothes - clothes for themselves, their wives and children. Because many of you gave immediately and generously we bought clothes for them and asked them to take for themselves and their families. Along with that, we asked pastors to take some more clothes for one other pastor who works in their area so that they could distribute to him and his family when they get back to Orissa. We also bought and distributed to them sheets to sleep on, cover, and towels. Many of our staff and members of New Calvary Church brought a lot of clothes to be distributed to the people in Orissa.
So much more is to be done because all we have begun doing is helping the Pastors and their family and one Children's home. Thousands of Christian families are in these relief camps and others still in the forest. Pray for us as we seek to find ways to break through the barriers and find ways to get relief to the saints who are persecuted for their faith.
During the phase of relief, our focus will be to provide adequate physical requirement that will help the persecuted to care for themselves and their families. This includes clothes, toiletries, pot pans, food for 1 week to 1 month, temporary housing and adequate water facility and a facility to take bath and use toilet.
Right now the pastors, their families and the church members are in relief camps set up by the Government where they are given one meal a day. The conditions are not satisfactory or safe. We need to pray that the government will stabilize the conditions so the families will be secure and gain confidence to return to their homes. It is reported that the families are not allowed to return to their properties. They are asked to renounce their faith in Christ and embrace the Hindu faith. We must do all we can to help these brothers and sisters and Christian families.
Our next step is that we are sending a small survey and relief team to Orissa so that they can assess the extent of damage; the actual number of people and families affected in these villages and gather the information. Our past experience has taught us that we need to, at this stage, just listen to the victims and understand how we can serve them best. While they are surveying and gathering the information, we will be providing rice, dhal, kitchen utensils, plastic buckets, pots, plates, glasses etc. This will be the second opportunity of our efforts in relief. Pray for the safety of the team and the ability of the group to find favor and enter the relief camps.
The survey team will also look into the possibility of providing pastors with temporary canvas tents as their houses have been burnt and completely destroyed.
In the Rehabilitation stage - we need to focus our efforts on four basic areas of redevelopment.
- Physical Rehabilitation - Taking care of Physical injuries, sicknesses etc.
- Emotional Rehabilitation - Provide Grief counseling and listen to them.
- Economical Rehabilitation - Build Community and facilitate economic development; helping the children to get back to school, getting them books, uniforms, shoes etc
- Spiritual Rehabilitation - Build faith, re-enforce their trust in the Lord. Encourage them to stand firm and trust in the promises of the Lord, developing new ways of worship services, Bible studies and prayer mobilization so their faith in the Lord is strengthened.
Imagine what happens to you and me when we lose our wallet. Some of you can relate to it. Or if you think of losing a loved one or when your wife or husband told you I don't want to live with you anymore? In these situations, normally we begin with denial, and we don't think it is happening. As long as we stay in denial, we can't deal with the issue because it is emotional and spiritual. If I can deny it, I think it will go away; however, the fact is it won't. We must help them to realize that we are by their side and God has not abandoned them. They can share their deepest and most difficult concern and know they are not alone.
If there is a place where many of us can help in the early stage it is to provide training to national Christians who know the language with the technique for grief counseling and skill people to sit and minister to them in the relief camp.
The role of the grief counselors will be listening to them, not providing solutions but really crying with them and praying with them and reassuring that they are not alone. Persecuted will seek to turn their focus on the Lord and provide hope in the knowledge of what the Lord has done for them in the past.
Secondly, the church leadership from these villages is the key to the restoration of the community. God taught us that they need to be identified and rehabilitated with the hope for the future. They need to be asked to redraw their future for their community, build the vision for the future and reassure that God, His church and His people will come alongside them because God will never let them go and they as leaders need to be bold and firm to stabilize the community.
The church during this stage not only provides grief counseling as a process of rehabilitation but must be a strong voice to the Government and with the help of the victims, leverage the Government to provide their rights and take responsibility.
The International world can also play an important role during this stage to send communication to their senators and political leaders to ask their Government to insist that national leadership to provide care and support for the victims. Unless they are given back their freedom to live in their home land they will become as orphans and permanent refuges with out a home.
While we continue to provide relief and rehabilitation and are successful to get them out of the refuge camps and into more permanent setting we will begin to notice life is being restored.
During this stage of restoration, the emphasis is upon personal, spiritual and economic restoration. During this stage, peace in the community is beginning to emerge, the Government has begun to take serious steps both from the Federal and state level to restore peace in the community and provide all the necessary support to ensure security emotionally and physically.
During this time children are also beginning to feel secured enough to return to school and the families are more likely to be moved from relief centers into the community where they once lived. The non governmental organizations that are serving the communities will need to be prepared to ensure that things can begin to happen for these communities.
They may need temporary shelter in the location now in community rather than the relief camps. It may be a tent that needs to be provided for them where they can take their things and restore life inside the community while things are being restored for them to live a normal life. Children are ready go to school but they don't have books, uniforms, pencil and these are necessary to help them begin to restore normality in community.
At this stage micro enterprising will be introduced and we need to teach people to develop their community through micro developmental programs so they are interdependent and capable of redeveloping the society.
Provisions can be made for cows and goats, to cook and make available at low cost for families that are in need because they are not able to immediately cook. Creating enterprises for restoring the community will be the key. Governmental subsidies, grants for economic development will also be valuable at this stage. In many places the area will have to be completely cleaned up so construction of houses will be made available and it will prepare the way for the next phase and that is rebuilding their community.
The fourth stage of rebuilding community will be the most expensive part of this total rehabilitation process. It is now that they have put their root into the ground by this time their lives should be able to sense security so that they are willing to rebuild their lives.
The government should have provided adequate support to bring them to that stage. The community should provide adequate support to bring them to that stage.
By now the government should have taken some serious steps to have identified the culprits that have caused these issues and arrested, fined and dethroned from power but as far as possible they should indicate to the community that measures have been taken to protect them and serious enough to show that they have dethroned the powers of the state and its leadership so that it will not happen again. This is an essential part of ensuring the rebuilding process.
During this stage NGOs can be very helpful to the government by working with credible agencies to rebuild the homes. This will take everyone to be involved, all of us working together in synergy will be able to restore and rebuild the community.
The leaders of the community must share their vision and through various stages efforts will be made from restoring the security of living in housing, to providing health care, educational programs, economic developments, resources and rebuilding churches and the community must be rebuilt again. The dignity must be restored, the confidence must be enhanced, and their trust in community and government and the world must be re-established.
After this process is established and they have gained confidence in themselves, the final stage of revitalizing them to become God's most powerful instrument must be introduced and the Holy Spirit of God and His works and the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ are the only transforming elements that can truly ignite the process of revitalization.
We have a responsibility and our responsibility is to turn their eyes upon Jesus to be filled with the love of Christ, to be transformed by the word of God and gain a vision for the lost so they never lose sight of the task of making the disciples in their Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and utter most parts of the world.
When we speak of total development of the village that has been destroyed in persecution, God is calling us to invest our lives in serving them compassionately so they experience the love of God and are restored in intimacy with Christ, filled with love of Christ in them that they are firmly rooted in His word and committed to love their enemies.
How Can You Be Engaged in the lives of
Our Brothers and Sisters in Orissa?
Stage 1:
a) Food:
We would like to help each family to have food items worth $2 every day to help them sustain themselves for the next 60 days. There are 1000 believers' families in these villages. You can support
( ) 1 Family $2 x 30 days $60
( ) 1 Family $2 x 60 days $120
( ) 5 Families $2 x 30 days $300
( ) 5 Families $2 x 60 days $600
( ) 10 Families $2 x 30 days $600
( ) 10 Families $2x 60 days $1200
b) Temporary Shelter: Tent/thatched shed
It will be a place for them to sleep at night and call it their home. The floor space maybe about 150 sq.ft
( ) 1 Family $50
( ) 5 Families $250
( ) 10 Families $500
( ) 25 Families $1250
( ) 50 Families $2500
( ) 100 Families $5000
Stage 2:
c) Household items:
We would like to provide house hold items like cooking utensils, stove, mats, lamp, plates etc. $75 per family
( ) 1 Family $75
( ) 5 Families $375
( ) 10 Families $750
( ) 25 Families $1875
( ) 50 Families $3750
( ) 100 Families $7500
d) School Needs of Children:
Provide school needs for the children like text and note books, uniforms, school bags etc.
$30 per child
e) Drinking water storage facility
Syntex water tank 1 per 25 families $ 100 per tank
f) Toilets:
To help construct toilets: 1 per five families $ 50 per toilet
As the Lord leads you to be engaged in helping our brothers and sisters, please send your check today designating it to "Orissa Relief and Rehabilitation" and specify the intent of your help. Kindly make the check out to "HBI Global Partner" P.O. Box 584, Forest, VA 24551. Or you can donate online through our website www.globalpartners.org
Your help will make a worthy difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters in Orissa. Will you please respond today?
If you would like to get a DVD on this project, please write to Wayne &Irene Shumate wshumate4@triad.rr.com or call them at 336-595-3891.
Kindly continue to pray for these brothers and sisters. We truly want your valuable prayers.
Thank you so very much and God bless you!
Your servant in the mission,
Dr. Paul (Bobby) Gupta
President
HBI Global Partners
P.O. Box 584,
Forest, VA 24551
www.globalpartners.org