wfn.org | Tsunami: LWF Member Churches, Partners in Asia Provide Relief

["Frank Imhoff" <Frank.Imhoff@elca.org>]

Tsunami: LWF Member Churches, Partners in Asia Provide Relief Assistance
A challenge to assist beyond the emergency phase to full recovery,
sustainability

GENEVA, 3 January 2005 (LWI) * As the death toll of the devastating
tsunami disaster rose above 150,000 today, the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) member churches in South East Asia continue to deliver most needed
basic assistance to survivors, many of whom have sought shelter in
community centers including church buildings.

>From the worst affected country Indonesia with over 94,000 deaths reported
mainly in the northern province of Aceh, Bishop Dr Bonar Napitupulu, head
of the North Sumatra-based Protestant Christian Batak Church (HKBP), says
there was overwhelming support from pastors and other church members to
coordinate assistance in the worst hit areas. But the situation remains
critical.

The western coastline of Sumatra island was the first to be hit by the
violent tidal wave following the December 26 undersea earthquake that
affected 11 other countries off the Indian Ocean including India, Sri
Lanka and Thailand among the worst hit, and extending further to East
Africa. Millions in South East Asia have been displaced and rendered
homeless. Destruction of property and livelihoods is extensive.

Napitupulu extended a wider call to all HKBP members and the ecumenical
community worldwide to help "our friends in [the worst hit areas] Aceh,
Pantai, Cermin (Serdan Bendagei) and Nias" through a special offering on
Sunday, 2 January 2005.

Indonesia: Church Complex Destroyed, Corpses in Mud-Flooded Church

Ms Ria Sidabutar-Pardede, reporting on Aceh from Jakarta says the HKBP
Banda Aceh "church is flooded with mud up to a depth of 1.5 meters high
with 50 corpses" that had not yet been removed for lack of equipment.
Around 100 church members had died, 300 had been rendered homeless and 70
had to be evacuated to the HKBP hospital in Balige.

The church complex in Banda Aceh, including the pastor's home and synod
building has been "wiped out" Pardede reports. Transportation by road was
still impossible. Air transport was available at a nearby airport but an
evacuation fee costing USD 55 per person made it unaffordable. Pardede
stressed the need to evacuate 25 patients to the HKBP Balige hospital, and
move another 100 homeless people to the region's capital, Medan.

The HKBP is "badly in need of medicine, food and clothes." Beyond current
needs there would be a post-disaster phase that would include traumatic
healing and the building of a new life, Pardede, a member of the Advisory
Committee for Theological Education in Asia (ACTEAS), adds.

The 3 million-member HKPB, the largest of the 12 LWF member churches in
Indonesia, has established three coordination posts, in Bedagei, Aceh and
Nias Island. Assistance is being coordinated with support from the
government and military, non-governmental organizations and other groups.
The HKBP and Simalungun Protestant Christian Church are major churches in
the areas south of Aceh in and around the city of Medan.

Napitupulu identifies main priorities as the search for and removal of
dead bodies; provision of relief food, shelter, clothing and drinking
water to survivors as well as emergency medication to the injured. The
HKBP bishop says the time limit set for finding the dead is about ten days
since December 28. The initial emergency assistance to survivors is
expected to last three months in the posts that have been set up.

Coordination of emergency relief in Indonesia is carried out through
Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, the Geneva-based global
network of churches and related agencies responding to emergencies
worldwide.

Thailand: Many Tourists Dead or Missing, Thousands of Fishing Boats Lost
at Sea

>From Bangkok, Thailand, where the official death toll is estimated at
nearly 5,000 including many foreigners, Ms Sally Lim, LWF Department for
Mission and Development regional coordinator for Asia reports that "the
figures reported are a far-cry from the real situation since thousands are
still missing and not reported and more than 4,000 fishing boats are still
lost at sea." But the disaster "has created such an impact on the people
here that it seems the whole kingdom of Thailand has plunged into this
rescue and relief work in one way or another."

The churches, royal family, government and military, relief workers,
schools, business and entertainment sectors and foreigners have all
contributed in numerous ways to help survivors of the tsunami that hit the
southern part of the country. Most of the hotels in the region, to which
thousands of local and foreign tourists flock annually for their year-end
holidays, especially the Phi Phi island and Khao Lak beach resorts, were
fully booked and estimated to have had about 20,000 local and foreign
tourists during the time of the disaster, Lim says referring to Thai
official reports.

Due to the great number of unidentified bodies of foreigners, corpses have
been ferried to Bangkok in refrigerated containers where, in most cases,
identification can only be made through DNA testing, to which the Thai
government has now resorted.

To prevent the outbreak of disease from the heavily decomposed bodies,
other unclaimed bodies would be buried at a temporary burial ground
prepared by the government in the provinces where the disaster struck.

India: Lutheran Churches, World Service Field Program Assist Victims
Jointly

In India, the death toll is said to have reached 9,500 and hundreds of
thousands are displaced in the coastal states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra
Pradesh, Kerala, and the union territories of the Andaman and Nicobar
islands. The United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India (UELCI), a body
of 11 Lutheran churches, is jointly working with the LWF Department for
World Service (DWS) field program in India to provide immediate relief
support in the form of food and non-food items initially to 13,500
displaced families in Tamil Nadu, mainly comprising fishing communities.
The five areas of operation include Tranquebar, Nagapattinam, Karaikal,
Cuddalore and Nagercoil.

The UELCI, with the help of local resources, is providing cooked food
until other alternatives can be found; cooking utensils; clothes and
medical assistance; drinking water and assistance for water purification.
Other priority areas include reconstruction of houses; availing communities with counseling and psychosocial support for trauma care; rehabilitating
community resources like wells, schools and community centers; as well as
providing catamarans (traditional fishing boats) and fishing nets.

While the crisis and post-crisis intervention will be the same for UELCI
and DWS India the areas of operation and number of families to be covered
by both partners will be different to facilitate effective implementation.
Criteria for selection for relief assistance includes families who lost
their land due to flooding; resource-poor families; female-headed
households; family members with physical disability and those who are most
vulnerable to future hazards. The teams will assess the situation in order
to select the villages and families that will be included in the rehabilitation period.

Since several Lutheran churches are present in the tsunami-affected areas,
four UELCI member churches will also directly participate in the implementation and rehabilitation process. They include the Arcot Lutheran Church,
Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, India Evangelical Lutheran Church, and
the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The UELCI Executive Secretary, Rev. Dr Chandran Paul Martin describes the
churches' and their partners' response to the crisis as "a faith struggle
and a challenge too soon after celebrating Christmas. It puts the church
in a very special position to bring relief and support to the affected." 
He stresses the main emphasis of response should be the reduction of
suffering and loss of the socially and economically marginalized people
affected by the disaster. The DWS India and UELCI are working closely with
another ACT member, Church's Auxiliary for Social Action.

>From Sri Lanka, where the death toll is reported to have reached over
46,000 with 24,000 missing, Rev. Michael Sivalingam, president of the
Lanka Lutheran Church (LLC) in his appeal for emergency assistance says
"many of our members are affected in the capital Colombo." Assistance to
the LLC will be coordinated through the ACT local member, the National
Christian Council of Sri Lanka.

In Geneva, LWF General Secretary, Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, commends churches
for the support they have shown in material, financial and "prayer"
support for the tsunami victims and survivors. He points out that the
tragedy also affected many nations outside South East Asia and Africa, as
indicated by the number of dead from several countries in Europe and the
USA. "We are grateful for this historic example of the outpouring of human
compassion towards those in critical need. The challenge is to ensure that
we maintain the assistance well beyond the emergency phase to full
recovery and sustainability," Noko said.

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 138
member churches in 77 countries all over the world, with a membership of
nearly 65 million Lutherans. The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches
in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith relations,
theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the
various aspects of mission and development work.
Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service. Unless
specifically noted, material presented does not represent positions or
opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an
article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced
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