“Home-based care is very important in Kenya and other African countries where AIDS is a huge problem,” said Jacob Fiene, manager, Medical/Material Resources with LCMS World Relief and Human Care (WR-HC), which sponsored the June 3-16 trek to Atemo, a village in western Kenya. “This training gives people who serve at the grassroots level basic nursing skills and knowledge to use when they make home visits.”

Fifty-two deaconesses with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK) participated in the educational seminar. Topics included wound care, sanitation issues, and distinguishing myths from medical facts.

“There is a lot of misinformation out there, especially in regards to HIV,” said Fiene, who worked with the ELCK’s Rev. David Chuchu and Kenyan health officials to launch the home-based care program.

Because Kenyan pastors serve multiple congregations, deaconesses shoulder many responsibilities, including visits with the sick. Deaconesses are theologically trained, Fiene said, and equipping them with basic nursing skills enables the women to care for both body and soul.

Two deaconesses will continue with advanced training. The goal is for these women to become certified trainers and teach future home-based care programs that reach even more Kenyans.

“By holding this one seminar, we created an opportunity that will enable care for many people even after a Mercy Medical Team returns home,” Fiene said.

At the Atemo clinic, MMT volunteers worked with Kenyan medical volunteers to treat 157 cases of malaria, deliver three babies, and care for people suffering with infections and other diseases.

MMTs include health professionals who provide care in underserved communities in cooperation with local LCMS partners. Future MMTs are scheduled for Madagascar (Sept. 30-Oct. 11) and a return trip to Kenya (Nov. 4-15). Plans are in the works to return to Haiti. Check the WR-HC website for updates.

Any funds not needed for this relief effort will be used for other disaster purposes as determined by LCMS World Relief and Human Care. Your gift is tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Since he became the first director of Disaster Response in 2006, Rev. Glenn Merritt has helped church workers throughout the United States improve their ability to serve congregations and communities when calamity strikes. On June 17-18, Merritt led LCMS World Relief and Human Care’s (WR-HC) first international disaster preparedness training in Nairobi, Kenya.
Twenty-six pastors and deaconesses “were encouraged to remain focused on Christ and sharing the Gospel even during times of disaster or crisis,” said Merritt, who presented the program at the request of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya, an LCMS partner church.
Customized presentations included “Christian Care in Times of Disaster or Crisis,” “Congregation and Member Preparedness,” and “Critical Incident Stress Management.” Lengthy discussions explored the difference between the ‘theology of the cross’ and the ‘theology of glory,’ with “participants actively sharing examples from their various ministries,” Merritt said. “The highlight of the entire seminar was the ‘Moments of Mercy in a Lifetime of Misery’ presentation, which elicited personal experiences and group discussion.”
Two more international disaster preparedness seminars are on tap, requested by partner churches. Merritt and WR-HC’s Rev. Carlos Hernandez will lead training, July 26-29, in Santiago, Chile, at the invitation of the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile. A third international seminar exploring the effects of a catastrophic disaster on professional church workers is planned for August 16-20 in Port-au-Prince, with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Haiti.

Following the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, WR-HC representatives were in the region, providing initial relief and assessing the needs for future assistance. In coordination with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Haiti (ELCH) and other agencies, WR-HC worked to establish sustainable shelter, water purification, and sanitation in devastated areas, as well as supplying food, hygiene kits, medical supplies, and generators. Mercy medical teams sponsored by WR-HC have visited the region, giving much needed medical care in the earthquake aftermath. In early April, WR-HC staff and volunteers worked alongside Haitians to begin the “Building Homes and Hope in Haiti” program, which will provide hundreds of new homes to families across Haiti. To date, WR-HC donors have given more than $5 million for earthquake relief in Haiti.

WR-HC also sent an assessment team to Chile following the Feb. 27 earthquake. Working with the Confessional Lutheran Church of Chile (IELCHI), the assessment team went door-to-door, visiting families affected by the earthquake. About 30 families completed applications for grants, funded partly by a grant from WR-HC. To date, WR-HC has raised $30,897 for earthquake relief in Chile

In April 2010, WR-HC Life Ministries, in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malaysia, awarded grant money to start a pregnancy resource center in Malaysia. The Women’s Care and Counseling Centre will offer health care, referrals, housing and material goods assistance, adoption services, support groups, counseling, and parenting classes to help women make positive life choices in an area where abortion and “baby-dumping” are common. In addition to materials, WR-HC staff will provide initial training and ongoing support to the center.

In Nov. 2009, Andranomadio Lutheran Hospital in Antsirabe, Madagascar, opened a new pediatric unit. Outfitted by donations from WR-HC, the new addition includes six patient rooms, a recovery room, doctor and nurse offices, restrooms, and a playroom. Begun in 2007, the unit will provide pediatric care in a country where the death rate for children under five is nearly 115 in 1,000.

These and other projects throughout the world are just part of the ongoing mercy work of LCMS World Relief and Human Care. We are completely dependent on generous gifts from donors like you. Please consider making a donation today to share mercy worldwide.

“We have a lot of work here in evaluating the situation and determining what steps we should follow,” Schumann said in a March 3 e-mail to LCMS World Relief and Human Care (WR-HC).

The Feb. 27 disaster killed more than 800 people and left some 2 million people homeless. WR-HC will send a two-person assessment team to Chile March 19-24, to join other LCMS representatives to help evaluate the opportunities for post-disaster ministry and to encourage the leaders and members of the IELCHI.

Schumann is traveling with an IELCHI assessment team to Santiago, Vina del Mar, Valparaiso, and Quilpue. He said relief efforts will focus on “small localities that have, comparably, suffered much more than the large cities and which have been forgotten and overlooked by the TV cameras.”

The IELCHI is providing immediate urgent and basic needs, and also plans to assist with long-term rebuilding efforts.

Helping to provide more stable shelter, water purification, and sanitation are among the “next steps” LCMS World Relief and Human Care (LCMS WR-HC) and the ministry’s many partners are tackling as part of the Synod’s long-term response in a poor country plunged into even greater need.

Assisting local Lutheran congregations so they can reach out to hurting communities will continue to be the focus of LCMS relief efforts in the months and years to come, says Rev. Glenn F. Merritt, director of Disaster Response for LCMS WR-HC.

Merritt and an LCMS assessment team traveled to Haiti just days after the Jan. 12 disaster that killed an estimated 200,000 and left 1.5 million homeless. He later joined a another LCMS team offering support to their exhausted Haitian counterparts – men who serve congregations as they cope with their own families’ losses. The LCMS pastors also comforted earthquake survivors in hospitals and refugee camps. “After a disaster, people need someone to listen as they speak about what has happened,” said LCMS WR-HC’s Rev. Carlos Hernandez, another team member.

The Synod’s mercy arm sent a Mercy Medical Teams (MMT) of health care volunteers to staff a clinic at First Lutheran Church in Jacmel and helped open food programs at Lutheran churches in the hard-hit cities of Jacmel and Port-au-Prince. Today, staff working with LCMS World Mission in the neighboring Dominican Republic continue to coordinate shipments of food and water – urgently needed provisions made possible by generous LCMS WR-HC donors who, to date, have given $2.3 million for the Haiti earthquake response.

The needs in Haiti are overwhelming, but LCMS WR-HC donors are helping to make a difference. “Help comes one person at a time,” said Rev. Matthew Harrison, LCMS WR-HC executive director, who provided pastoral care in Haiti after the earthquake. “We are helping people – many, many people – one person at a time.”

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.”

“Without this ministry, about 400 families each month will either go without enough food or will go without much of the fresh fruit, vegetables, milk and cheese products that this food pantry provides,” said Deaconess Rachel Mumme, a deployed LCMS World Relief and Human Care (WR-HC) staff member based in Berlin. “The food pantry ensures that those families who live in this part of Marzahn do not have to go hungry.”

In October, WR-HC provided a $1,000 emergency grant to the Berlin-Marzahn congregation, the youngest mission congregation of the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church, an LCMS partner church. Although the grant provides only a small portion of the total needed to buy another truck, it adds to the fund-raising effort spearheaded by Rev. Hartwig Neigenfind, who started the mission congregation in 2000.

To keep the food pantry operating out of the church, the congregation rents a refrigeration truck. But members cannot afford to continue such an expensive arrangement indefinitely, Mumme says. They are eager to replace the truck, which burned while parked overnight on a Berlin street in a fire that remains under investigation.

In addition to giving away several tons of fruits, vegetables, bread and milk products each week, the congregation also invites people who visit the food pantry to worship with them and offers opportunities for pastoral care. Appropriately, these German Lutherans call their ministry Laib und Seele – “bread and soul” in German.

“We talk a good deal about the body of Christ – that if one member is hurting, then the others hurt with it,” Mumme said. “Knowing about this congregation and the challenges they have gives us an opportunity to care for this member, through our prayers, with our gifts, and, for some, even in person. Caring for those in need is simply a part of who we are as Christians. The sufferings of others are ours, and our suffering theirs.”

To learn more about the Berlin-Marzahn mission congregation, contact Mumme at rachel.mumme@lcms.org.

The September 30 earthquake caused the greatest death and destruction in what may be an unprecedented number of recent disasters in the Asian region, said WR-HC Asia Regional Director Darin Storkson. “Disasters happen all the time here, but this may very well be the most we’ve seen in such a short amount of time,” said Storkson. “Lately, it almost seems like a disaster a day.”

Asians also are reeling from a typhoon in Taiwan, tsunami in Samoa, and flooding in the Philippines. On October 2, people in the Philippines were bracing for yet another typhoon heading toward a country already devastated by Typhoon Ketsana, which left 293 dead.
In Sumatra, Storkson says communication and travel are difficult but that he has been in contact with local partners about relief needs. WR-HC worked with the same partners after the 2004 tsunami devastated Southeast Asia.

In the U.S., WR-HC Director of Disaster Response Rev. Glenn F. Merritt is working with ministry partners to respond to relief needs, primarily in American Samoa. On September 29, a powerful tsunami crashed into Samoa and American Samoa in the South Pacific, killing hundreds. Congregations in Hawaii and California are working with Merritt to direct funds to survivors.

Donations are urgently needed to help people who have lost loved ones, homes, and livelihoods in Asia. “We have staff on the ground and Lutheran partners to work with, but we need funds to respond to such a great number of disasters and people in need,” Storkson said. “Of course, we know that Americans are facing their own economic challenges, and that makes us even more grateful for any sacrifices they can make to help us to reach out to suffering people in other countries.”

In six rural communities of Vietnam’s Phu Tho Province, a unique bank makes four-legged loans and helps turn around the lives of families struggling with poverty and malnutrition.

Some 130 families already take part in the “Cow Bank,” a project sponsored by LCMS World Relief and Human Care and LCMS World Mission in partnership with Vietnam’s National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). Instead of a cash loan, the bank provides a cow to poor farm families. Instead of repaying their loan with money, the families give their first calf to another needy family.

One recent loan recipient is Nguyen Thi Tinh, the mother of eight children. Tinh can use her new cow to boost her family’s income by selling calves. Some families also use their cows to transport tools and crops.

The Cow Bank is helping to reduce extreme poverty in these “overlooked” communities northwest of Hanoi. Seventy-seven percent of the households lack enough to eat and as many as 29 percent of the children suffer from malnutrition, according to surveys conducted in conjunction with the Cow Bank project.

The micro-credit bank is only one facet of a $60,000 hunger and poverty reduction effort now in its second phase. The project also targets improved health care and support for kindergarten programs by:

• Equipping six community health clinics where families receive basic health care and free medicines. Most importantly, children get free vaccinations.


• Supplying six community kindergartens with necessities ranging from clean water tanks to blankets. Children also benefit from a daily high-nutrition snack.


• Assisting 12 of the poorest households with making basic sanitation upgrades.

Since 1995, LCMS World Mission has worked as a registered non-profit in Vietnam. In 2007, Vietnam’s NIN recognized LCMS World Relief and Human Care and LCMS World Mission for nutrition and poverty reduction efforts.

Support from caring Christian donors through LCMS World Relief and Human Care make possible the Cow Bank and other projects that touch lives in Vietnam and worldwide.

LCMS World Relief and Human Care (LCMS WR-HC) provided a $3,300 grant to the Lutheran church body in Myanmar to help survivors in an area severely damaged by the cyclone but overlooked by other relief organizations. The grant assisted some of the poorest families in the Hlaingtharyar Township, north of Yangon.

The grant was part of a project jointly sponsored by LCMS WR-HC, LCMS World Mission and the Garuna Foundation (a U.S. organization that supports ministry in Thailand and surrounding countries) that provided money for:
• supplies to rebuild homes
• food for cyclone survivors
• scholarships for students to attend the government school
• repairs to the local Lutheran church, which serves as a popular community center

Phase 2 of the LCMS WR-HC grant is in the works and will provide an additional $11,000 to the National Lutheran Church of Myanmar for continuing relief efforts.

The May 2, 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy delta region, killing some 150,000 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless. In the days immediately following the disaster, LCMS WR-HC alerted LCMS members in the United States to the tragedy and issued an appeal for donations to help survivors.

LCMS WR-HC provided additional support to the Burmese people through its inter-Lutheran partner, the Baltimore-based Lutheran World Relief (LWR). To date, the Synod’s mercy arm has directed a total of $65,500 to LWR to help provide food and shelter assistance and clean water for cyclone survivors. The LWR response has been part of the global aid alliance, Action by Churches Together.

The cyclone’s 120-mile winds destroyed or badly damaged homes that are largely built of bamboo, with roofs covered by dried palm leaves. Home losses added another challenge in a community where many children suffer from malnutrition and unemployment runs high.

When the Burmese people expressed surprised at the assistance from LCMS WR-HC, Rev. Edwards spoke of Jesus’ love. He said the grant is one way to demonstrate the love of God and to help suffering neighbors.

Even before the cyclone, LCMS WR-HC had partnered with the Myanmar Lutheran Church. From 1999 to 2003, LCMS WR-HC provided funds for a childcare facility in the Thingangyun Township, another poor community. Each month, Rev. Edwards travels to the children’s center to lead worship.