Baptist Global Response

Christians throughout the United States keep reaching deep into their pockets to support nonprofit humanitarian organizations — despite tough economic times.

Read more here.

A new video from China explains how Southern Baptists and other believers are helping children traumatized by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

Thousands of teachers in Sichuan province are being trained in techniques of trauma counseling through a project in which Baptist Global Response is partnering with the Chinese government. Through BGR, you have an opportunity to provide crucial tools those teachers will use to help 150,000 traumatized children to verbalize their feelings, at a cost of just $11 per child.

The video will be useful to help you understand the important role these tools will play in helping children find their way to lives of meaning and purpose. They also will help Sunday school classes, small groups, and congregations realize the tremendous impact they can have on the lives of these precious children.

To watch the video yourself or screen it for a group, visit gobgr.org and click on the “Resources” tab at the top of the page.

By Pamela Swithin

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – One reason Southern Baptist overseas relief and development work makes an excellent long-term impact in the communities it serves is that Southern Baptist field personnel and volunteers work so closely with local leaders and community members.

When Hurricane Felix devastated Nicaragua in 2007, that kind of partnership made a tremendous difference for the Miskito people of that country’s Atlantic coastline.

Because the storm destroyed so many homes, one aspect of the Southern Baptist response focused on building houses. Baptist Global Response and their local field partners, using $75,000 from the Southern Baptist General relief Fund, launched into a project to build simple houses in some of Nicaragua’s poorest communities.

The Miskito people live in conditions most Americans would find hard to imagine, said David Brown, who directs Baptist Global Response work in the Americas.

“The Miskito people are just one step up from hunter-gatherers. They live a painfully poor life with little opportunity for education or social advancement,” Brown said. “Job training and employment opportunities are non-existent. Even when volunteers from the United States leave behind the power tools they brought to do their work, the tools often cannot be used because there is little to no electricity where the majority of the Miskito people live.”

Community leaders and the local Baptist Miskito Association were recruited to help identify the neediest victims of the hurricane: the elderly, widows, people with disabilities, single mothers and the extremely poor. Seventy-five families – a total of 600 people – were helped through the housing reconstruction project.

The houses, which measured 20 by 16 feet, were built in traditional Miskito style but reinforced to provide strength and durability so the structures would endure future storms. Local and Southern Baptist volunteers were assisted by paid laborers, all under the oversight of local Miskito church leaders. Local communities provided materials such as sand and gravel for the foundation posts, and private donors and other humanitarian organizations also contributed money for the project. Local village leaders, regional municipal governments, and the national “departmental” government all endorsed and supported the project.

Local leadership was a key element in the project’s success, said project director Jim Palmer.

“Thirty-eight Miskito pastors and church leaders remained directly involved in the project for its duration – helping plan, oversee, and direct the process,” Palmer said. “They assumed responsibility for the project and invested a great deal of time in the selection process, as well as accompanying the volunteer teams during the construction phase. The pastors showed great leadership skill in their direction of the project, giving their time freely in supervising, working, accompanying the volunteer teams and mentoring the people involved.”

Close partnership with local leaders and community members makes for much more effective ministry and efficient use of relief funds, Brown added.

“Local leaders and community members understand the needs better than anyone else could. They know how to design a project so it will be well received by the people,” Brown said. “They also often know how to find local resources that would be much more expensive or impossible to locate from an outside source. Working closely with local leadership helps us make the very best use of the money Southern Baptists have sacrificed to help with a disaster response.”

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The Southern Baptist General Relief Fund, like the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, is a “dollar in, dollar out” ministry. Every penny donated can be used in the relief effort because Southern Baptists provide for administrative and overhead expenses through other channels. For more information about giving to the General relief Fund or World Hunger Fund, visit our Giving page.

Pamela Swithin is a collegiate correspondent for Baptist Global Response.

The “wholeness” that God brings about in community has much to say and teach us about things such as pain, death, sickness, poverty, injustice, etc.

BGR Executive Director Jeff Palmer’s most recent blog post at Kingdom Communities draws some excellent insights out of the six biblical models of community he has been discussing.

Read more here.

Community development is helping 42 villages on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines where impure drinking water was causing diarrhea – a life-threatening situation for weaker members of the community.

Extension workers had been working among the Higaonon tribe for a couple of years, because they were found to be the most economically depressed people in the area. Many have been helped, but at the conclusion of this project, it has become evident that there is still much work to be done to uplift the physical condition of the Higaonon tribe and the rural Cebuanos.

Five months ago, in a remote village where BGR and partners are working with a Filipino doctor who is sponsored by an American NGO, five children died in a two- or three-day period because of diarrhea brought on by contaminated drinking water.

This past July, Filipino development workers were introduced to a simple bio-sand filter technology that can be produced for around $10. They were able, in cooperation with local officials, to immediately deliver and install four of these filters. Since that time, there have been no cases of diarrhea in the community.

A new project is now ongoing in 13 villages that do not have adequate drinking water. Villagers will be formed into co-ops for training, production, training, and distribution of these filters. Pray that fresh drinking water will be available to all!

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The item above was adapted from “BGR to GO,” a prayer bulletin issued by BGR prayer coordinator Lori Funderburk. A children’s prayer letter also is available. To subscribe the these e-newsletters, visit gobgr.org.

By Kate Taylor

MARALAL, Kenya – While most Americans have never been desperate enough to scrounge for fallen kernels of corn on the dusty ground, famine is a harsh daily reality for millions of people in Kenya. Southern Baptists, through their generous giving to their World Hunger Fund, are providing food relief for thousands of Kenyans on the brink of starvation.

In January 2009, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared the food shortage a national disaster. “Our national assessment is that 10 million people are food insecure and require emergency support,” Kibaki said. “These people will not be able to meet their minimum food requirements between now and the end of August 2009 without emergency methods.”

The food crisis was caused in part by severe drought, as well as the global energy crisis and last year’s post-election violence, which disrupted planting in the country’s breadbasket region, Kibaki said.

Charles Daniels, a field partner of Baptist Global Response in Kenya, said conditions in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province are almost unimaginable to Americans.

“In the Samburu district, we have not seen a drop of rain for months. If drought persists, conditions will worsen,” Daniels said. “As grasslands dry up, there is no pasture for livestock. Cows no longer provide milk, which is vital as a source of food and also money to buy other food staples. The water holes where women walk daily have become little more than cracked and dried depressions of dirt.”

With an allocation of $25,000 from the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, desperately needed food staples have been distributed to 4,800 people in Samburu district. Each person received 13 lbs of corn meal, 6.6 lbs of red beans, and .73 lbs of cooking fat.

Those supplies will be enough to sustain the people for a full month, Daniels said. Because Southern Baptists cared enough to give to their World Hunger Fund, people in need have been greatly helped.

“Many Samburu are having a difficult time these days; some more than others,” Daniels said. “While some are still able to walk and wait and survive on a little, others are in real danger. These are the ones we sought out.”

Daniels asked believers to pray for the people of Kenya as they face continued famine and drought – and for the team of Baptist Global Response field partners and national partners who are working hard to give Kenyans an opportunity to experience a full and meaningful life.

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Kate Taylor is a collegiate correspondent of Baptist Global Response. For information on giving to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, please visit our Giving page.