Disaster assistance for families in India and Indonesia
LCMS World Relief and Human Care (WR-HC) partners continue to distribute emergency relief supplies to families in Andhra Pradesh, India, and West Sumatra, Indonesia, who are still reeling from devastating disasters.
In southern India, a total of 1,000 families will receive rice and other provisions made possible by a $34,170 grant from WR-HC to the India Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELC), an LCMS partner church. The assistance comes after October monsoons triggered floods described as the region’s worst in 100 years.
Ravi Jesupatham, India country coordinator with WR-HC, is overseeing the distribution of emergency relief kits that began in October and continues through early December. After the flooding, Jesupatham called the Indians’ plight “appalling and heartbreaking.”
WR-HC and the IELC are focusing on villages and slums that have an IELC presence and have been largely neglected by other relief efforts. One such area is the slum near the city of Vijayawada, where the local IELC church and the homes of the pastor and some 25 IELC families were destroyed.
After a 7.6 magnitude earthquake devastated West Sumatra on Sept. 30, WR-HC sent deployed staff to the hard-hit Indonesian city of Padang. More than 1,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of homes “vanished,” according to the assessment report that also tells of many orphaned children and homeless families.
WR-HC provided a $30,000 grant for food, medicine, tents, and other necessities for Indonesians living in refugee camps. The Protestant Christian Batak Church (HKBP) and Ya-Peka HKBP (the church body’s humanitarian partner) are distributing the relief supplies. HKBP church leaders and WR-HC have worked in partnership since the 2004 tsunami.
As the recovery continues, survivors also are getting tools and building materials to repair their homes. In early December, Rev. Tumpak Sianturi, a WR-HC staff member based in Indonesia, reported from Padang that “conditions are getting better now, but the supplies from some sources are stopped already except from the government and some [organizations] like us.”
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