Churches front and centre in providing aid in Myanmar

Starvation and disease continue to increase, workers estimate over 100,000 dead or missing.

 Photo: dewpoint.org.uk

The international aid effort in Burma, or Myanmar as it is known today, has amounted to little more than a trickle considering what is necessary to stave off increasing danger of disease and starvation of the more than one million people stranded by cyclone Nargis.

The cyclone hit in early may in the Irrawaddy delta district, a fertile and heavily populated region considered the rice bowl of Asia. Aid workers estimate up to 100,000 are dead or missing.

Aid agencies from around the world immediately responded to the crisis but the ruling military junta has been wary of allowing aid workers into the country to set up relief operations.

Experts say that only a tenth of what is needed has reached the hardest hit areas. Efforts have been hampered not only by government restrictions but by poor equipment and bad weather.

Aid agencies already operating in Burma when the cyclone hit have found themselves stretched and are requesting outside assistance.  Gospel for Asia, a Christian ministry that has been operating in Burma for 15 years and has a Bible school in the capital city, Rangoon, has become a shelter in the storm for many affected by the cyclone.

“We are ministering to as many people as we can,” said Pat Emerick of Gospel for Asia Canada. “We have a very deep well and diesel generator where they are pumping water as fast as they can right now. The greatest need is for rice and water.”

Ironically, in a country where foreign missionaries have long been banned by the military junta and where Christians face ongoing persecution, Emerick says the bible school has become a makeshift headquarters for the local police department as well as temporary home to Buddhist monks and orphans from an area orphanage.

Now their focus is to get funds to the 500 Burmese Gospel for Asia workers on the ground to distribute to those most in need.

“There are resources in the country, not in the affected area but in the country, that can be brought down,” Emerick says. “But now we have to pray that the roads would be open and that we could get into the Irrawaddy district.”

All donations that go to Gospel for Asia go directly to the workers, and are not distributed through the government. Emerick says all Gospel for Asia workers raise their own salaries so the funds can go directly to the field workers in Asia.

“Everything GFA does happens on the field. We don’t send workers from here. We train workers there because they can reach their own people.”

And as the situation worsens as aid shipments are delayed, Emerick says much prayer is needed for Burma, a nation that has been hit by conflict, oppression and now its worst natural disaster in a century.

“Since this situation is so desperate the very best thing they can do is get on their knees before God.”