WASHINGTON (ABP) — As the death toll surged past 70,000 in one of modern history's worst cataclysms, Baptist groups from around the world rushed to help survivors of the Dec. 26 South Asian tsunami disaster.
Press reports on the afternoon of Dec. 29 cited government figures estimating at least 45,000 dead in Indonesia and 22,000 in Sri Lanka, with coastal areas in Thailand and eight other nations around the Indian Ocean also hit hard. At the same time, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Baptist World Alliance were hurrying to get relief funds and supplies to missionaries and indigenous Baptist groups in the affected areas.
“Our personnel in the areas affected are involved in lending emergency assistance and are exploring ways to respond to the long-term needs in appropriate ways,” said Jack Snell, CBF's associate coordinator for missions teams in Asia.
The Atlanta-based Fellowship has already authorized each missionary or missionary couple to spend up to $5,000 on emergency relief. Meanwhile, CBF Global Missions leaders are beginning to coordinate continued response with the BWA's relief arm, Baptist World Aid.
CBF officials have contacted all of the organization's missionaries working in the affected regions, Snell said, and all are uninjured. However, he added, the earthquake-triggered surges displaced or threatened several missionary families. They are now assisting their neighbors and communities, he said.
“We have been in touch with our personnel in Asia and are grateful that all are safe,” Snell, who is based in Singapore but currently on stateside assignment, said Dec. 27. “But we grieve with those who suffered the consequences of the devastating earthquake and the ensuing massive tsunamis. As is often true, the brunt of the tragedy was borne by those who are poor and powerless and who have the fewest resources to respond to their loss.”
The Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board was closed for the holidays Dec. 29, but a press release on its website dated Dec. 27 said all its missionaries in the region were safe. It also said the agency's relief efforts would begin with deliveries of blankets, food, water and medical supplies to southern Thailand, and that SBC workers were scheduled to meet with Thai government officials Dec. 28 to coordinate relief plans.
Meanwhile the Virginia-based BWA, an umbrella organization for regional and national Baptist groups across the globe, was working with indigenous Baptists to provide humanitarian relief. Immediately after the tsunamis, Baptist World Aid allocated an initial $25,000 for relief supplies to be channeled through Baptist groups in the region. It also allocated $5,000 to a team of Hungarian Baptist medical and aid workers who went to Colombo, Sri Lanka, Dec. 27.
According to BWA director Paul Montacute, the team also will distribute $110,000 worth of medical supplies donated by Hungary.
Dec. 29 press reports from the region said disease — from thousands of human and animal corpses continuing to wash ashore as well as sewage spread about by the flood waters — may endanger thousands who survived the initial blast of surging waves.
A BWA press release quoted a Sri Lankan Christian leader saying the situation in that island nation off the southern tip of India “continues to be frightening.” The country's security forces, according to Sri Lanka Council of Churches S.K. Xavier, “are dispatched in the affected areas to control the people, not allowing them to return to the risk areas, such as the shores.”
Xavier also noted that heavy seasonal rains are worsening the flooding caused by the sea surge. “Though it was forecast that the monsoon rains have ceased, the weather has changed, and as a result, there is rain. Muttur is very badly hit, and it is a torrential rain there,” he said.
The BWA release also quoted a doctor from a Baptist hospital in the coastal Indian province of Andrah Pradesh. Lalitha Voola of Nellore Baptist Hospital reported Dec. 27 that “fishermen and people living on the coast were unprepared for the waves that rose as high as 6m (20 feet). It started at 8:15 A.M yesterday. Thank God it did not happen during night.”
She continued, “This is one of the worst natural disasters in [the state] and hundreds of fishermen are missing after the massive tidal wave.”
Montacute also noted that the world's last massive natural disaster struck a year to the day prior to the tsunamis. On December 26, 2003, a massive earthquake virtually leveled the Iranian city of Bam.
“Baptists responded with compassion for our appeal at that time,” he said. “And now as we look toward 2005, I hope and pray that the resources will come so that we can respond positively to the requests from our Baptist leaders and workers from the affected area.”
The American Baptist Churches are collecting funds for disaster relief through the denomination's One Great Hour of Sharing humanitarian offering. According to a Dec. 27 release from the American Baptist News Service, ABC General Secretary Roy Medley called on the denomination's members to give and “to pray for all those who have been impacted by this catastrophe — and those who will continue to be devastated by it.”
SBC, CBF and BWA all are collecting donations for relief work in the region. Information on how to donate can be found on their websites — CBF's is www.cbfonline.org; BWA's is www.bwanet.org; and SBC's is www.sbc.net.