Waiting anxiously for relief packets that would keep their families alive another few days, famished villagers braved swiftly moving, chest-high water to crowd around the small, wooden boat.
Floodwaters had forced most of these people onto rooftops or stretches of raised land, and the small packets offered the only food they had to eat in days.
Bihari Christians traveled 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) by boat to reach the families cut off by floods that ransacked the northern Indian state of Bihar this monsoon season. As rains fell and melting snow from the Himalayas caused rivers to rise, vast amounts of water raced through Bihar. Roads and entire villages were washed away, sometimes with no warning.
Floods in Bihar are common during monsoon season. This year, however, there was little warning for many isolated villages as water rose rapidly.
Scarce provisions
Many people were marooned with few provisions at best. Some people were able to stash provisions on rooftops, but for a society that lives off the land from day to day, floods mean devastation and possible death. In the midst of Bihar’s severest floods in living memory, a small number of national Christians banded together to get relief to 1,000 stranded families who otherwise may have faced starvation before the floodwaters recede.
National believers are few in number in Bihar. Elvin Trueb, an international Christian serving in Bihar, said believers make up 0.015 percent of Bihar’s population of more than 83 million. This fact, however, did not prevent about 15 believers from mobilizing together to provide much-needed relief to some of Bihar’s most desperate flood survivors.
With half the state flooded, livelihoods, as well as homes, have been buried under 20 feet of water in some places. After three or four days with no relief, many people were starving.
“There’s not really any kind of disaster relief or disaster management plan in Bihar,” Trueb explained. “It’s really difficult. In the newspaper here, there are stories about some relief being done in some really badly hit areas. The government will fly a helicopter and throw out packets of food. In one case, they threw 40 or so packets of food out on the road for a village. There can be sometimes 10,000 people in a village here, so these folks are fighting over these packets of food. Some packets are missing the road; they’re going in the water, and people are jumping in and then dying because they can’t swim. They are desperate for food, but the government here just isn’t equipped.”
When a couple of national church planters realized the desperate plight of so many villagers, they asked Trueb to help organize a relief effort.
“Fortunately,” Trueb said, “through Baptist relief, we have the resources to do something. Even though there are not a lot of local resources at our disposal, God gave us what we needed and what we’d be able to handle.
“First, we went and did a survey. We went out, took a look around and saw what the condition was. When we got there, an entire road had been washed out to this one village, and even while we were out there, the water was rising pretty rapidly.”
Once they assessed the need, they quickly put into effect a plan to bring relief to those Biharis most in need.
“We worked out a plan to try to get some food packets out to the families by boat,” Trueb said. “The idea was that the local church planters would be the ones to distribute the packets. They’re the ones whose standing will be raised in the community. … In the future, they will be able to share the gospel freely in that area and give us access, give the gospel access to places it hasn’t been before.”
The survey trip revealed about 1,000 families stranded and in desperate need of provisions. The team decided to put together 1,000 packets to deliver one to each family. It filled the packets with food items designed to provide the maximum amount of nourishment possible in a packet that was easy to deliver and ready to eat.
“We delivered 14 kilograms (31 pounds) per packet, and there were 1,000 packets,” Trueb said. “The packet consisted of ‘chura,’ a pre-cooked, flattened rice product that is ready to eat. So it had 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of chura. It had ‘suttu,’ which is a high-protein source made from a type of nut. Then there was some sugar, salt, matches and candles, and also crackers, known as biscuits in India.
“The average family here is about five or six people,” he said. “Relief’s design is to keep them from starving to death, not to provide them with three square meals a day. If they’re frugal with it, it will probably last them for a few days or maybe a few more than that.”
In three days, the Christians purchased, packaged and distributed relief supplies to families in four of Bihar’s flooded villages.
“The first place we went was a pretty poor area, some low-caste people (those at the bottom of India’s hereditary social classes),” Trueb said. “They were so thankful to receive those packets. The second place, we had to stay in the water the whole time. Everyone who wanted a packet had to walk to us in the water.
“No relief had come to them yet, so they were really in the position where they needed it. You could see the desperation in their faces. It was really good to see that the local believers were able to make a big difference.”
In the flooded city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, the result was not nearly as rewarding. Southern Baptists had provided food to be given to the people there, but just minutes before the first meal was handed out, the relief effort was halted, said workers in the area. The International Mission Board declined to say who would not allow the distribution to take place.
Focusing on survival
Workers were able to hand out cards with John 3:16 on them and plan to follow up later with those who were given the cards.
In the villages where the relief efforts are working, the second phase means another round of resources. Indian believers will return to these families in a week, bringing more supplies.
“We’re going to go back and hit these families again with materials they can cook, because they’re still going to be in the same situation in a week or so,” Trueb said. “They’re not going to be able to go out and plow the fields and work the land. Who knows when the floods will recede, but even so, food will remain scarce. Hopefully, they will at least be able to cook food by that time.”
The next packets will contain 24 kilograms (53 pounds) of rice, lentils and other food the survivors can cook. These items will last longer than the initial emergency packets.
“They may be able to go seven to 10 days off of that,” Trueb said.
Gospel can now follow
Trueb acknowledged that without the work of the national believers, none of the relief efforts would have been possible. They were the ones who took the responsibility of getting the supplies where they needed to go.
“They want to see this relief come to their people,” he said. “They obviously love Christ, so they love others.”
The benefits of this effort were twofold for the Indian Christians involved. Because of their hearts for their people, they were able to save lives. The hope is that by bringing their people the temporary gift of life-sustaining food, they later will be able to offer them the spiritual gift of eternal life through Jesus.
“Their credibility really rises in the eyes of the village leaders and in the eyes of the community,” Trueb said. “When the flood is over within a couple of months, they can go back in and share the gospel and pretty much do it unhindered. No one is going to give them a hard time, because they know that they were the ones who brought these boats.” (IMB, TAB)
EDITOR’S NOTE — Name changed for security reasons.
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