Baptist Global Response

ATHENS – Baptists in a Middle Eastern country are partnering with Southern Baptists to give their neighbors, as the old saying goes, “a hand up, not just a handout.”

In 2007, believers in the country brought their neighbors’ plight to the attention of Southern Baptist humanitarian workers in the region, and together they developed a strategy that would meet short-term needs while helping parents develop skills to better provide for their families over the long term.

Residents of the area struggle to survive, earning only about 40 percent of their country’s normal standard of living. On a day-to-day basis, they can not afford necessities like food, medicine and heat for their homes; their long-term prospects are clouded by the scarcity of jobs and their lack of training. Because the country predominantly follows another world religion, Christians find themselves faced with significant obstacles in reaching out to people in need.

In consultation with Abraham Shepherd, who with his wife, Grace, directs Baptist Global Response work in the Middle East, local Baptists and the Southern Baptist humanitarian workers developed a two-pronged strategy. To meet immediate needs, they provided packets of food – including sugar, rice, oil, eggs, milk, tea, and pasta – essential medicines, heaters and blankets the families could not afford. They also designed a program to train locals in skills that would enable them to improve their standard of living and help them provide better for their families.

The long-term strategy included both educational centers where literacy courses, English classes and computer training are offered. Individuals also were taught how to develop their own businesses. In the component of the program that ran between January and April 2009, an estimated 800 people were helped at a cost of $31.25 each from resources provided by Southern Baptists who gave to their World Hunger Fund.

Another benefit of the program is that while local Baptists were helping their neighbors, they also were developing their own leadership and serving skills. Because relationships are so important in the local culture, local Baptists were able to break down barriers by demonstrating God’s love for their neighbors.

“The object of this project is to work through local believers to reach the poor of this nation,” said the project director. “Our desire is for local believers to have a passion for their neighbors’ needs and be able to reach out in love. As the local believers get involved in sharing, they will be encouraged by seeing what God is doing and what great things he can do.”

Even a small gift to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund sets in motion a ripple effect that touches lives for generations to come, Shepherd said.

“By their generous giving to the World Hunger Fund, Southern Baptists trigger a chain reaction of caring that reaches across oceans,” Shepherd said. “It touches people in need and shapes national believers in the lesson of generosity and giving to their neighbors in need.”

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For more information about giving through the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, please visit the BGR Giving page.

Southern Baptists continue to provide urgently needed assistance to families suffering in Zimbabwe’s unprecedented economic catastrophe. As of December 2008, the inflation rate was estimated at an unfathomable 516 quintillion percent — the highest ever recorded. The only goods available in stores are priced in foreign currency that ordinary citizens do not have. Those who do have some money in the bank are limited to withdrawals too small to purchase food.

A new phase of food distribution was launched in mid-March, sending 45-pound boxes of staple items to 5,000 of Zimbabwe’s neediest families.  Each box includes food staples like rice, oil, salt, powdered milk, corned beef, beans, etc., to help families stave off starvation.

This next week, enough food to make 1,800 food parcels should arrive in the country.  Please pray for the border crossing and distribution. This will be the last of the approved food parcels that we have set up from the current project. Pray that BGR and partners will have wisdom concerning the next step.

Also, please consider making a contribution toward this project. $90 provides food for a family for one week.  For more information visit http://www.gobgr.org and click on the “Giving” tab.

We have written numerous times about the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe and the ways Southern Baptists are reaching out to help people in need in that country. One aspect of that crisis is the way deteriorating infrastructure was crippling the work of Sanyati Baptist Hospital. Southern Baptists, through Baptist Global Response, stepped up to help the hospital by replenishing its drug supply and working to repair its water delivery system. You can read about those projects here and here.

Now we have a letter of thanks from David Mtisi, the administrator at Sanyati, for the lifesaving assistance rendered through BGR. His letter says, in part (and edited for clarity):

On behalf of the Sanyati Baptist Hospital staff and residents of Sanyati in general, I would like to thank you so much for your unwavering support during these needy times.

The availability of the so much needed drugs which we received saw us reaching greater heights in delivering our health services to near and far patients. Almost all hospitals in Zimbabwe closed shop because of the unavailability of drugs but we managed to sail through even up to this day. This is all because of the support from the Baptist Global Response.

Almost for quite a long time we didn’t have a reliable source of water and the hospital in particular many times would have untold difficulties in delivering our services without water. We resorted to neighboring community wells because we didn’t have choice. The pipes that draw water from Munyati river where we got our water for a long time were out of order hence they have been replaced by the Baptist Global Response. So far four boreholes have been drilled and old one has been cleaned and new connecting pipes have been laid to ferry water to the main reservoir tank for distribution. We now have a lot of clean, safe water here in the mission station and this is why I write this letter to thank you so much for the wonderful work done here.

With these few words I thank you all those who contributed towards these projects. May the Almighty God richly blesses you all and may you live to see us in the best of health.

David Mtisi
Hospital Administrator

There remains a lot of work to be done on the water project. They have had problems with the wells not pumping water and another drilling rig was to be brought out to clean and re-case the wells.

The generous, caring souls who donated to help this project should receive Mr. Mtisi’s word of thanks with gratitude. God has worked through your generosity to make a real, life-saving difference for people at Sanyati. Through you, he has given people new hope and new life. The love and compassion of Christ has been demonstrated in a tangible way for the Sanyati community and all those who come  to the hospital from all over Zimbabwe for help. We join Mr. Mtisi in thanking God for people who care about people in need.

The women danced and sang, thanking God for the food that kept their families alive for a while longer.

The food, delivered by Charlie Daniels, a Southern Baptist missionary in southern Kenya, literally kept these women and their families from starving to death.

Read more here

On a recent trip to China’s Sichuan Province, Baptist Global Response staff visited “Hope Two,” a center that helps pregnant women who are survivors of the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Many women lost their one and only child in the earthquake and now are trying to have another child. In one resettlement camp, however, 75% of the pregnant mothers were miscarrying because of the high levels of post-traumatic stress they were experiencing.

A special room at Hope Two has been set aside for these mothers. It looks like a living room. Posters of babies decorate the walls. Obstetricians come to the center once a week to monitor the women, and hopeful mothers-to-be are benefiting from the “Bears and Books” provided by BGR partners – helping them mourn their loss and look to the future.

Praise God that the books and bears are providing comfort to these women! Please continue to pray about giving toward this project. A bear and a set of six books costs $11. The comfort and hope they are bringing to these young mothers-to-be is priceless! For information on how you can help, click here.

As drought ravages the Maasai homeland in Kenya, families face the specter of starvation. Thanks to the generosity of Southern Baptists who gave to their World Hunger Fund, 180,000 Maasai received a full month’s supply of staple foods.

To read the full story, click here.