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Many have wondered if Mission ONE ministry partners in Asia have been impacted by the tsunami disaster. Thankfully, although some church members have been seriously affected, no lives were lost by our national missionary partners. But there is one ministry with whom Mission ONE has had many years of effective partnership which has been greatly involved in relief efforts to villages devastated by the tsunami — on India’s southeast coast. That ministry is Hindustan Bible Institute (HBI), which is located in the major city of Chennai (Madras) in the state of Tamil Nadu. The area near Chennai took a direct hit from the tsunami. The following letter from Dr. Bobby Gupta, Director of HBI, describes the effective ministry which HBI staff members and volunteers are doing among the people of several villages who have lost so much. The victims are predominantly Hindu. The work of HBI among them is practical, wise, and saturated with the compassionate love of Christ. Bobby Gupta writes… Dear Friends, We praise and thank God for His continuous guidance in enabling us to move from one stage to another. We have gone through three stages of relief work…
Now we are at stage four — grief counseling. We have trained more than 100 people in grief counseling and are fielding them into these villages. Our staff and church volunteers are visiting every home and sitting with them and speaking with each family. It is so wonderful to listen to the counselors when we debrief with them every day and hear their experiences. What God is already doing in these villages! — our people are making the greatest contribution of spending time with people and listening to them. I was so encouraged at our debrief yesterday when one of the counselors shared with us this story… A guy named Murugan said that he had heard about Jesus through one of his relatives and wanted to attend a local church to know more about Jesus. But his wife was not interested and refused to consider going with him to the church. So he chose not to become a Christian because his family was not willing. But he told the counselor, after our team started to visit his village, that his wife told him, “We should throw away our clay idols and believe in Jesus Christ. These Christians really care for us and we must go to church.” Praise the Lord! God is at work and please pray that every one in these villages will turn to the Lord, and God will build a church in every village. We have learned a lot by talking to the fishermen in the villages. One of the counseling groups that was in Venpusham village told me that December, January and February are the best season for the fishermen as they earn Rs.500 to Rs.1000 ($12–$24) per day — and carry on the rest of the months with what they get in these three months. They said they have lost their prime fishing season and business, and do not see a hope for their future. The fishermen say that right now there is no business for their fishing industry as people are not buying fish. These men are completely in fear to go back to the sea to start life all over again. Even if some of them want to go back, they do not have their nets, boats and fishing tools as everything has been washed away in the water. Plus, they are also physically and emotionally hurt and feel very insecure in going back to their profession. Many of them told our counselors that they do not want their children to continue the fishing profession. Right now they are completely confused and uncertain if they want to go back to fishing — or choose a new profession for which they feel inadequate. So our stage five is economic development including vocational consultation. Once they have confidence in our commitment to them, we would like to work on building their economy. We will see how many of them want to go back to the fishing industry and see how we can empower them. We would also like to do micro-enterprise projects with women and young men of the villages and help them to become self-reliant. Another fear that many women expressed was about having enough food. They said, “Right now people are helping us and in a week or so we will run out of all our food, and we do not have jobs nor we can get any other jobs as our husbands have lost their nets and boats. It will be months before they get back into the sea. We don’t know what will happen to us. Will you help us or will you also stop coming? How will we get food to feed our family and children?” Friends, as we continue to look at some of the basic realities, in a couple of weeks no food will be given to these people. We do not want to stop with what we are doing, but continue to help these villages. Our goal is to help them move from dependency to independency and then to interdependency. We realize that moving them from dependency to independency will take at least two months. We will begin meeting the leaders next week for a strategic planning meeting to discuss how we can turn their villages into an integrated effort so that they can have a business that will sustain their families. They are dependent right now and will be for at least 60 days. It will also take time for grief counseling — and to help them plan their business. It will also take about 20 days for them to make the nets; they prefer to make their own nets. They need the time and we can use it as a means to move them through a process. Friends, God has given us a plan to help the people during the stage of dependency. We would like to help each family to have food items worth $2 every day to help them sustain themselves. We decided to open a store in each village and stock the necessary food items like rice, dhal, and vegetables. In the next few weeks we will issue coupons so that they can buy from our store using the coupons. We also hope to develop the business plan [to restart their previous
businesses or begin new ones] and move them to the next level of
interdependence by helping them start businesses that feed each
other. Stage six is liaison with the government. We will help the people with the process of accessing the resources which the government has promised in order to build permanent housing. We do not know how this will unfold but we will watch it, and if it takes too long, our hope is that if the Lord provides agencies that are willing to help in building houses, we will help build one village at a time. I believe the process will take up to twelve months. We hope that the Lord will use us to help the people get rehabilitated, restored to a better quality of life — and that a church is planted in each of these villages that do not have one. Thank you for getting behind us to advance God’s kingdom in these villages. Praying for you and may the Lord bless you. Yours in Christ until all have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, Bobby Gupta, HBI
One of the national missionaries supported by Mission One was affected by the tsunami in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Pastor Asim Kumar Trupati and family are in great danger now. Their home has been washed away, and got some broken legs, etc. Now they have no home and no food or drinking water, sleeping on the footpath. We are collecting cash and other materials to help out Pastor Asim and family plus his church, too. Please pray. Life there is pitiful. We have already raised some money and did help them; it is only $400. It is not much, but what to do? We are in need of funds at least $45,000 to reconstruct the church and other houses. Your missionary Asim Kumar served the Lord faithfully past 15 years. Number of churches he has planted in those remote islands has been already under the ocean water now. Even we cannot trace it. I asked him and his family to come over to mainland to live but he refused, wanting to stay with his church people there till the Lord comes. –A. Stephen
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