Global Aid Network Mission Reports

From a June 26 report submitted by one of our ministry partners in Zimbabwe:

Greetings in the name of the Lord.  I trust our good Lord is keeping you strong by His grace.

Two days ago I returned from Zimbabwe. I went there to register a humanitarian development program, and to appoint leaders for this program as well [and others in] our ministry.  We want to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of the suffering people.  In partnership with GAiN-USA, we have been involved in humanitarian projects for the last four years through distributing food, seeds, fertilizers, school materials, and so on.  As a result, the Lord is using our ministry to plant hundreds of churches.

But the condition in the country is not good.  One American dollar is exchanged at 25 billion Zimbabwe dollars.  If you have $40, that is one trillion. I don’t think you can buy even a chewing gum with one billion.  When I arrived at the airport at 9 PM on Sunday, the airport was unusually quiet.  About 40% of the electric [light] bulbs at the terminal are out.  Most of the street lights are not working.  Except for some patrolling police, I did not see people walking in the streets, even in the downtown.

     I was told that groups of youth roam the streets, and if a person is stopped and cannot recite the ZANU-PF slogan or sing the party song the right way, they are put in jail. In some areas, if people are found walking they were forced to attend Mr. Mugabe’s rallies for hours.

The country used to be very beautiful: the purple jacaranda flowers, hard-working and friendly people, one of the best infrastructures in Africa, wonderful climate and fertile soil, best education in Africa, and even Mr. Mugabe was known as one of the best leaders in Africa.

But now, due to rigid policies, wrong decisions, lack of accountability, and arrogance, things have completely changed for bad. Many people live in fear and have lost hope. They are only waiting for God’s intervention. As the people go out to vote (there is nothing to vote) tomorrow, June 27, please pray for God to reign in the country, for peace, and for justice.

Our ministry workers are generally ok except one volunteer and several film-team members who have been put in jail for the night and released because they were stopped in the street for they were not able to recite ZANU’s slogans.

However, God is doing great things. There are many stories of God’s grace to tell. This is just one of them:

Matthew is one of the film team members in Zimbabwe. He planted a church in Hurungwe in 2006 using a film about Jesus. Since then he focused on training and building-up new believers. The people who were trained were then put into eight groups, and each group was asked to plant a church. As a result, 17 more churches have been planted in the area.

Our ministry in Zimbabwe is one of the fast-growing ministries in Africa.

This summer in 500-1000 volunteers from around China are raising money to come to the province where the earthquake hit.  These volunteers are eager to assist the survivors.  Love and help is what they will bring.  However, they do not bring experience.  So, the organizer of the volunteers asked the GAiN staff specialist in disaster response to come in and train the volunteer leaders so that they could train the volunteers in how to help.

For four days, the GAiN disaster specialist took them through a very basic but very intense course on disaster response, specific to this disaster. He briefed them on how to do an assessment of needs. The volunteer leaders trained on safety in the field as well as crisis management and contingency planning (in the event of another earthquake).  They briefed on how to brief and de-brief teams.  They trained in how to work with the government and the local leaders.  They trained in compassionate listening in a way that does not re-traumatize the survivors (a pretty common mistake when people who aren’t professionals try to do counseling).  They trained in appropriate ways to distribute aid without causing a riot using Jesus model of feeding the 5000 as the model (this same model is what the UN High Commission of Refugees recommends not coincidentally).   They looked at the spiritual dynamic of disaster and wrestled with why these kinds of events like the earthquake happen from a Christian perspective.

The volunteer leaders then went through exercises in establishing and implementing ways to help.  Together they evaluated the data and came back with recommendations of how to help and each idea was tested by the GAiN disaster specialist to ensure that it was appropriate in this situation.

Based on their and other assessments, these were areas that the volunteers will focus on.

• Distributing plastic covering to waterproof the tents
• Distributing school supplies and mosquito coils.
• Distributing coal for cooking.
• Setting up someone in the area to make wheelbarrows for the survivors to clear rubble and re-build.
• Distributing shovels and sledgehammers for clearing rubble and re-building.
• Compassionate listening while there with as they interact with the survivors.

 But the main other strategic goal that came out of discussions revolved around the two biggest needs we found.  This will be discussed in our next blog. 

Sunday, nine of us went out to assess three camps in the Sichuan Province.  We arrived around two o’clock in order to visit three villages near the mountains.  With us we had brought seven tents that could house 10 people each, about 500 bars of soap, mosquito coils and toothbrushes.

  The first group that we visited was a refugee camps on the grounds of a plastic factory.  They were from the mountain region that had experienced with the earthquakes that had destroyed their villages.  I think I was the first westerner that they had met…maybe ever.  I was definitely a curious sight to them.  The government had placed in the on the grounds of a plastic factory as when they were in the village they were not welcomed.  The pollution was terrible from the factory.  There were approximately 400 people here in 23 tents, two families to a tent.  These represented two tribes.  No one died from this first group.  They were being served by one toilet, the corn field and the river for places to go to the bathroom…..mostly the river and cornfield.  They were foraging for wood for cooking by cutting green wet wood in the forest.  One well that pretty much could run continuously for water.  I tested it and it was fine.  The children were really responsive to being played with.  They also loved it when our volunteers played Chinese checkers with them and talked.  They told us that in the morning the line for the toilet takes hours.  They have no job as they were mountain farmers.  This village had ten kids 12 and under.  All kids 12 and older were at boarding school.  They really appreciated our mosquito coils for their tents and took them all.  Mosquitoes were eating them alive they said.

The second group had stayed in their village though it was rubble.  Most had tents or tarps.  A few had died including the mother of the only baby in the village.  Now no one could nurse them.  I asked the Chinese staff with me to explain that any woman who was a mother in the last ten years could nurse him as the baby would latch on and re-start milk flow but that was thought to be culturally too weird.   They reported that they were feeding the baby powdered milk (I hope that is not true and that it is formula).  One lady showed me her house.  It had not fallen completely down.  She wanted me to tell her that it was safe to move back in.  I couldn’t as structural cracks were everywhere and the walls were bent.  One of our volunteers asked me to do it anyway, but I told him that he could do it only if he would also say that he would be willing to let his daughters stay there too!  He decided to tell her it was unsafe.  This village had around 800 people.  No toilets except for the toilets in the damaged homes that they could get to.  This village had around 30 kids 12 year and under.  Only one government group had seen them as they were a little hard to find.  We gave them our tents and the balance of the soap and toothbrushes that we had left.  They were so grateful some started singing.

 The third group was in a village.  The village seemed very affluent when it was standing.  Almost half the population of this village was over 60 years old.  One man I met was a 96 year old man (I hope I look and get along as good at 80!)  He said when the earthquake began; he walked outside and hung on to a tree.  He wanted to show me the tree so we walked over together.  He offered for me to come into his makeshift shelter and smoke cigarettes with him (hospitality as cigarettes are expensive) but it was starting to get dark and we had to leave.   We had one other family come to see us and ask us to come to their home.  With a weird sense of pride they showed to us a rock that had come into their living room during the earthquake that measured about 12 feet in diameter.  Absolutely massive.  It had rolled down the mountain and into their house.

In this area, toilets were again a need as was wheelbarrows, sledgehammers and shovels to clear the rubble.  Also they needed a way to dry the rice at harvest.  They had no toilets as well.

In all three locations, all the tents were very leaky as it is the monsoon season.  Blue tarps would be great in covering the tents to protect them from the rain.   

Several things struck me.  The government has done a great job of addressing shelter and water and food.  They are to be commended for this.

Fuel for cooking, waterproofing tents, recreational equipment for children, and especially TOILETS were the biggest physical needs we found and this was confirmed by several other groups.  The other need was their need to talk. All of them wanted to talk and be listened to.  They also were despondent over not having work and the thought that they can’t go back to their old ways….especially the farmers who are illiterate for the most part.  There is a real need of micro-enterprise and re-training these men.

Joey Ann Payne, Operations Manager at Global Aid Network’s warehouse/distribution center near Lancaster, Pennsylvania shares a brief update below about the Mission Packing Project that is taking place there, “It is going very well,” said Payne. “We needed to pack 5,000 CarePacks for Myanmar in just two days to meet the deadline of the trucks arrival. The volunteers really dug in and finished it. Now we have a close deadline on [packing] seeds for El Salvador and Gambia. We are pushing hard but need more volunteers.”

This youth group, shown in this photo, came from Christ Church of Roaring Spring, PA.

“We were looking for a mission trip that was economical,” Nancy Kletzing said. “This was close and the kids got really excited about it.”

Two boys and one girl worked with their pastor packing CarePacks for Myanmar. They had so much fun that they returned that evening to work more even though they had planned to stay at their host home and rest.

Their pastor, Joel Kletzing, was so proud of how his youth worked. “I had no idea they would work so hard here. They really enjoyed it. They are already talking about coming back next time.”

When they get back to their church, the kids want to present a DVD of the Mission Packing Project and their own stories to their church. Their group may be much bigger next Mission Packing Project!

Today a team of staff and volunteers loaded 202 wheelchairs into a container bound for Ukraine. This was a partnership with Wheels for the World.

These three couples work at the GAiN Warehouse year-around as coaches for the local school students here on job training assignments. They also turned out to help during the June Mission Packing Project. They are packing seeds for El Salvador.

Check back for more updates and information about what is happening at Global Aid Network’s Mission Packing Project.

Greetings Family, Co-workers and Friends.

Just wanted to thank you for your prayers. It is Sunday afternoon here in Myanmar.

It is hot, muggy and raining a lot here. We have had several very productive meetings here so far with church leaders, Christian leaders and government officials.

I was at church this morning and had the blessing of speaking about 15 minutes to a church of about 250. What a blessing! It went fine and I enjoyed it.  This evening we will go to another church and will speak again. Many of the songs this morning were in English. It was pretty surprising to me how many songs were in English. The general superintendant of this denomination shared that he oversees 1400 churches and they have 7 bible colleges here in Myanmar.

Please pray as we meet with various church and Christian leaders as well as travel and meet people affected by Cyclone Nargis.  I have heard many very sad stories. And I have met many who have been a great encouragement to those who have suffered.  As I shared this morning with the congregation - we don’t know the whys of everything that happened but what we do know is that in spite of circumstances - God’s grace and mercy and faithfulness are very real and as James mentioned in chapter one - God uses the testing of our faith to produce perseverance and perseverance can make us mature and complete in God’s eyes. I heard one story of a village that had 220 families and 120 died from the cyclone.  All but one house was destroyed and that was the pastor’s home. That has given him a special opportunity to provide housing for many in his village. 

Another story I heard really moved me. One believer who was a student at a Bible College had gone out to a village in the delta area prior to the cyclone as part of her studies. She had an incredible ministry there and many teens at the camp had become followers of Jesus.  She went back to the same village after the cyclone and discovered that over half of the youth and children had died in the cyclone.  She was so moved that she brought 50 of them back with her and her church is helping to provide for them until they can go back.  So this has been a very difficult time for many.  Please pray for those affected and pray for the teams of believers who are going out to the areas to minister - as they meet practical needs, physical needs, emotional needs and spiritual needs.

Yesterday, the first two large trucks of building supplies left for a staging area out in the delta area. They will be used to build schools in 6 villages. Typically school starts here in June, but due to the affect of the storm, they can’t start until clean up happens. Some schools have begun and are meeting outside so the sooner we can get them built - the better.  Our hope is that the six schools will be completed in the next couple months. Then, after that, the community centers will be constructed.  Global Aid Network has also been asked to build three health clinics.  It has been raining a lot here since it is monsoon season so we would really appreciate your prayers for the work here especially as this is done by believers who have the wonderful opportunity to demonstrate God’s love through both word and deed.  Thanks for your love and prayers. 

Blessings.

Duane Zook