Photo via assistnews.net

Ministry in Pakistan reaches out to Christian flood victims

Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan (SLMP) has begun distributing vital aid to Pakistani Christians in the aftermath of the worst floods in the country in 80 years, reports Dan Wooding, founder of ASSIST Ministries.

Pakistan's Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gillani, said on Wednesday, September 1, 2010, that Pakistan had suffered losses of about USD$43 billion because of the floods that have displaced more than 17 million people and killed over 1,600.

The floods, which started with heavy monsoon rains in July, have affected 30 percent of Pakistan’s agricultural land and more than 10 percent of the population, destroying crops and livestock, and damaging homes, Gilanni said.

But now a group called Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan has come to the aid of Christians in the devastated country.

“We have distributed aid to 250 Christian families in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province," Sohail Johnson, Chief Coordinator of Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan told an ASSIST News Service (ANS) correspondent by phone.

He said the SLMP will also deliver assistance to 470 families in the Sajawal and Jati areas of the Sindh Province of Pakistan. Johnson also stated that his organization would also distribute aid in Charsadda and other areas of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Appeal

“The flood victims are facing unrelenting misery,” said Mr. Johnson. “Their houses and livelihoods have been washed away. About 120 Christian families in the Charsadda and Tarnol areas are without any tents to live in. After floods have reduced their houses to mud they are waiting by the side of the road in desperate need for a shelter.”

He went on to say, “We appeal to international Christian ministries, church leaders, Christian philanthropists and international Christian aid organizations to help us respond the needs to provide food aid and make-shift shelters to affected Christians.”

The Christian leader told ANS that 500 tents could house 120 flood-stricken Christian families and he added, “We are considering setting up ‘food tents’ for Christian flood victims. Besides tents, many more Christians also need water filters.”

Medical care

In a phone interview, Mr. Johnson said that many of the flood victims are suffering from cholera, diarrhea, scabies (a contagious skin disease) and eye infections in the aftermath of recent flooding.

Photo via assistnews.net

He said his ministry would like to respond to the urgent need of medical care and shelter but, he stated, “Our main focus and concern at the moment is to deliver food aid to flood victims.”

He said that he feared that the social, economic and humanitarian crises resulting from flooding could have far-reaching implications for the country if much-needed aid did not arrive quickly to the victims.

Devastation

The World Bank said on Wednesday that it was raising its support for flood relief in Pakistan to USD$1 billion, from USD$900 million.

Describing his first-hand witness account of the devastation caused by the flooding in Pakistan, Mr. Johnson told ANS that he could not stand to see people “acutely desperate for food and other basic items including make-shift shelters.”

He vowed to continue distributing aid to the Christian victims of the Pakistan floods right across the South Asian country and revealed that on Thursday, September 4, 2010, his group had been able to distribute aid to people in the Pakistani city of Multan.

The Christian rights activist said his ministry had also drawn up a plan to distribute aid to flood-affected Christians in Kot Adhu, Munda Chowk Liyyah and other badly hit areas in Southern Punjab.

Mr. Johnson told ANS that the Christian recipients of flood aid had given up any hope of aid reaching to them until they received it from them.

“I am very much thankful to God and SLMP’s Chief Coordinator for providing us with relief package that contained food items, clothing, pots and pans and our daily use items,” Mrs. Benjamin, a flood victim in Nowshera, told the ministry’s aid workers.

Islamists threats

Asked if western aid agencies and Christian aid organizations in Pakistan were facing threats from Islamists, Mr. Johnson said it was “very much the case” and they had taken “all precautionary measures to avoid any untoward eventuality during aid distribution.”

Photo via assistnews.net

Mr. Johnson revealed that they had removed a banner bearing ministry’s name when the aid truck arrived in Nowshera located in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. “We employed this measure to minimize any chance of miscreants [law breakers] targeting the relief truck,” he said.

He said that they had distributed their aid in the Nowshera Catholic Church.

“The fear of us being attacked by miscreants dictated our choice of the venue,” he explained.

Mr. Johnson told ANS that police officials were also present at the aid distribution venue to avoid any “untoward situation.”

He said that, besides food aid for Christian victims, they had also distributed quilts, clothes, utensils and toys for the children who had been traumatized by the floods.

Domestic Donation

Mr. Johnson said that Mrs. Amber Sohail, the Project Coordinator of the group’s Capacity Building Program went to the Pakistani city of Faisalabad along with instructors for a sewing center so they could provide ladies clothes and bed sheets.

He went on to say that the Girls of the Youhanabad Sewing Center “stitched bed sheets for Christian flood victims.”

Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan has expressed solidarity with the Christian flood victims and conducted prayer ceremony for them after they had received aid on Friday, August 27, 2010.

Addressing the Christian flood victims in Nowshera, Mr. Johnson told them they were “not alone” in this difficult time.

“Christian brethren across the world are praying for you. You are God’s children and He never forsakes His children,” he said.

Photo via assistnews.net

Mr. Johnson told ANS that presence of the ministry workers among Christian victims of flood “had strengthened them in their faith.”

Mr. Imtiaz Ashraf from Release International UK who was also at the event, asked the Christian recipients of SLMP aid to hold hand each other hands and pray together.

Rev. Father Amir, Parish priest of the Nowshera Catholic Church praised SLMP’s work for the Christian flood victims.

“I am very much impressed by SLMP’s work for the Christian flood victims. It is a great encouragement for those Christian families who have nothing left after the flood. It is a great relief for them. May God bless and protect all the SLMP team members and its Chief Coordinator,” Kamran Shahzad, field officer of the ministry, quoted the priest as saying.

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TAGS: Pakistan Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan Christian flood victims Yousuf Raza Gillani

[09/07/2010]

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