Baptist Global Response

It’s hard for Americans to imagine the distress of Zimbabwe’s people. The inflation rate is now estimated to be well above 1 million percent – how can you even begin to understand that? Neighboring countries in southern Africa have demanded President Robert Mugabe’s administration sit down for talks with the opposition party after violence-wracked elections culminated with Mugabe winning a one-man run-off vote. Millions of refugees have flooded across Zimbabwe’s borders into neighboring countries.

Hard to fathom.

It’s also hard for Americans to imagine how deeply moved Zimbabweans are when they receive the 50-lb boxes of food Southern Baptists are sending to the country through Baptist Global Response. Each box includes staples like rice, dry beans, wheat flour, cooking oil, salt, powdered milk, canned corn beef, sugar, and tea.

Here’s a brief report we just received from Kelly and Ann Carruthers, BGR field partners in Botswana who have helped with distribution of the boxes in Zimbabwe. Ann writes:

“Kelly, Mooketsi, and Noah returned from a perfect three days in Zimbabwe. I want you to know the impact the boxes had on the people Kelly delivered them to a week ago. He said people were rubbing their clothes and saying, ‘Look, I got soap last week to wash my clothes with!’ It brought me to tears. Kelly said even men were crying over the fact that Baptists were reaching out with the boxes. Wow!

“I love these people so much. Next weekend when we return, I will get a chance to go, The ladies have invited me to a Woman’s Missionary Union meeting, and I will wear the purple uniform they bought me. I can’t wait to hug them again.

“Thank you for praying, and thanks to the many Southern Baptists giving those boxes!”
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To help with the Zimbabwe Food Parcel project, click here.

The following testimony came to us from a Chinese believer who served as a volunteer in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake:

My heart can’t stop thinking and praying for the people I encountered in Sichuan province. This morning I received a text message on my cell phone that said: “Within the past year I have lost nine close family members, can you tell me how I can live on?” I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew it had to be one of the people that I had met in Sichuan.

I sent a reply text, and the woman related to me that her son had met me outside one of the towns where we were dispersing supplies to those devastated by the Wenchuan earthquake. I had given her son my business card, and she had gotten my phone number from it and decided that she could possibly reach out to me for help.

It was amazing to me how God opened the door for me to encourage this woman I had not even met. I told her I would like to help out any way I could and will continue to call and talk with her. She seemed very encouraged. But this is only one life that touched me. There were more.

Let me go back and start at the beginning. The last time I visited Sichuan province, I had joined a group of believers there. One of the leaders was a Mr. Lee. On May 12, only minutes before the Wenchuan earthquake hit, Mr. Lee had arrived in Chengdu, a city south of the earthquake zone. He was coming to work with a school support system for children in poor areas, but his focus quickly changed to disaster relief and recovery and he has been there ever since. Mr. Lee has now stationed an earthquake relief center for believers in his hotel.

I have had the privilege to work with Mr. Lee and his group. Believers have come from all parts of the country to help. Volunteers were stationed in villages within days after the quake, striving to meet the urgent needs of the victims. As the needs of those villages became less acute, the workers began traveling farther and farther out, looking for people who had not received any help. These workers are there for the long term.

The government is working feverishly to rescue, feed, house and rebuild, but it is so huge there are areas that are not being helped. Those are the areas Mr. Lee and his volunteers are looking for and ministering in.

I was able to go out with Mr. Lee’s team only one day, but it changed my life. The village we went to is close to a town where 80% of the houses totally collapsed in the 8.0 quake. Most of the villagers have not left their condemned homes, but instead made very simple huts from plastic tarps in their courtyards or in more open areas of the village. On the day I arrived, the two-man distribution team had already been there for more than two weeks. Living in the area has allowed them to know the most urgent needs of the people. As they relay to Mr. Lee the needs of the villages, supplies are bought and trucked in for distribution.

On this day, we were distributing rice, cooking oil, and other needed supplies. There we are, working in the middle of total devastation, nothing but piles of rubble around us where homes and businesses had been. The landscape is spotted with the color of tents and tarps that shelter the residents.

As we are working, an old woman approached us and began to share with us how much good these Christian volunteers had done for the community. It was difficult for me to understand all of what she was saying because of her accent, but I knew she was thanking us. She left us and I thought she had just gone home – or to what had been her home.

Actually, she did go home, but as we were leaving the village, we spotted her coming down the mountainside. We could see by the way she was walking that she was carrying something in the apron of her shirt.

As she got closer, we could see what it was: 10 large gardenia flowers. She did not say anything but only proceeded to put them into our hands, with tears in her eyes. I knew she had nothing left of her former life to share with us but these gardenias. They were the only thing she could find to express her gratitude.

Our hearts were touched and we were very grateful that God gave us this opportunity to touch lives in need. A gardenia – the fragrance lingers in my memory, but now it will always bring to mind the face and tears of this woman and her village, one place we had the privilege to serve.

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Contributions to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund and the Baptist Global Response Disaster Response Fund help Southern Baptists respond in crisis situations like the earthquake in Sichuan. For information on how to donate to those funds, visit our Giving page.

The Baptist Global Response news site has been updated with a new article about relief efforts in the wake of the May 12 earthquake in China’s Sichuan province.

To read more, go to http://www.gobgr.org and click on “China relief effort adds focus on ‘Hope Centers.’” High-resolution photos also are available in the BGR on-line photo gallery at http://picasaweb.google.com/BGRimages/Sichuan080603.

Mark Hatfield, BGR’s area director for Sub-Saharan Africa, sent us a statistic the other day that just really rocked me back on my heels. He picked the item up from a prayer newsletter he receives.

“Concerning AIDS orphans: 30 percent of the children in Swaziland are either single or double orphans [meaning either one or both parents have died of AIDS]. The number of orphans in the country has increased from an estimated 12,000 in 1999 to 70,000 in 2005 with a projected increase to 120,000 by 2010. The number of child-headed households [children living in homes without adults] is increasing.”

It staggers the imagination to think of the grief and responsibilities these children are bearing at a time in life when they ought to be playing happily and enjoying their friends and families. I’m grateful we have ways to help them – and people who care enough to reach out to them from the United States. It’s always gratifying to see that so many believers understand that caring for orphans and widows in their troubles is “pure and genuine religion” in the sight of God the Father. (James 1:27)

Many of us can touch the lives of these orphans by giving, and some of us are in the position of actually going to help them personally. But every one of us can help them by praying.

The note Mark sent ends like this:

“Pray the many orphans in Swaziland will have someone to care for them.  Pray for an intense awareness by the Swazis of the causes and problems of AIDS and the responsibility of protecting friends and family members.”

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To learn more about Baptist Global Response, visit our website at gobgr.org.