wfn.org | UMNS# 061-Church raises $6 million for tsunami relief,

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Church raises $6 million for tsunami relief, but need continues

Jan. 26, 2005

NOTE: A photograph is available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Linda Bloom

NEW YORK (UMNS) - As Indonesian officials once again increased the
estimated death toll from the Dec. 26 tsunami, United Methodists
continued their efforts to assist the survivors.

The denomination raised $6 million for relief work by Jan. 25. The
United Methodist Committee on Relief is encouraging church members to
continue making cash donations and collecting health and school kits and
medicine boxes for shipment to South Asia.

Church members from Indiana and Missouri also have pledged to rebuild
two Methodist churches damaged by the tsunami - providing additional
space for community centers and clinics - in the Indonesian cities of
Banda Aceh and Meulaboh.

BBC News reported Jan. 25 that Indonesia's health minister, Fadilah
Supari, estimated more than 220,000 died or were missing and presumed
dead because of the tsunami and preceding earthquake. A United Methodist
delegation recently visited Aceh Province in northern Sumatra, where
most of the destruction occurred, carrying donations of medicine with
them.

The new estimate brings the total killed in 12 countries throughout the
region - including Sri Lanka, India and Thailand - to more than 280,000.

Many of the survivors are homeless. Methodists in Indonesia are
providing aid to the 8,671 internally displaced people living in 11
camps around the town of Bireuen. Children account for more than a
quarter of the camp residents.

Working with the Indonesian Methodist Church, UMCOR plans to assist with
cleanup in the Banda Aceh and Meulaboh areas, offer grief counseling and
pastoral care, and embark on a pilot program for house replacement.

In Sri Lanka, the agency expects to work with Methodists on
community-based projects that also help restore lost income for
residents. UMCOR's partner in India, Churches Auxiliary for Social
Action, already has provided emergency food and supplies to some 50,000
families and plans to build more than 800 temporary shelters. CASA has
applied for approval to rebuild housing in 24 villages.

UMCOR has worked in partnership with Church World Service on the
delivery of health and school kits to tsunami-damaged areas. Kristin
Sachen, an UMCOR executive, said the ecumenical relief agency is
anticipating making such deliveries for at least nine more months. "We
will be helping them with the kits," she added.

Church World Service has been active in the region for more than 20
years and has more than 100 staff members in Indonesia, with offices in
Medan, Banda Aceh and Jakarta. The relief agency's Pakistan emergency
response team has been helping its longtime partner, the National
Christian Council of Sri Lanka, respond to needs in that country.

As part of Action by Churches Together - a global alliance that also
includes UMCOR and Church World Service - the National Christian Council
is coordinating medical assistance to 10 camps for displaced people
around Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. Five of the camps are in church buildings,
with about 1,800 lodged in the Methodist church.

Donated kits are processed at UMCOR's Sager Brown Depot in Baldwin, La.
Gwen Redding, director of Sager Brown, reported that, as of Jan. 25,
some 36,000 health kits already had been dispatched to the Church World
Service warehouse in Maryland for shipment to the tsunami region.

The health kits focus on personal hygiene as a method of improving
overall health. Each kit contains a hand towel, washcloth, comb, nail
file, bar of soap, toothbrush, toothpaste and six adhesive bandages,
sealed in a one-gallon plastic bag.

School kits contain ruled paper, blunt scissors, an eraser, a ruler, six
pencils, a pencil sharpener, crayons and construction paper.

Instructions for the kits can be found at
http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/print/kits online.

Each medicine box contains both over-the-counter and prescription
medicines, enough to treat 1,000 people for about three months.
Information can be found at http://gbgm-umc.org/health/medbox for
organizing the boxes.

Monetary donations to UMCOR's "South Asia Emergency" relief efforts can
be placed in local church offering plates or sent directly to UMCOR, 475
Riverside Drive, Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Designate checks for
UMCOR Advance #274305 and "South Asia Emergency." Credit-card donations
can be made online at www.methodistrelief.org or by calling (800)
554-8583.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

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United Methodist News Service
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