The small Nepali congregation started worship May 2 right where they left off the previous week — singing.
Two dozen voices gained momentum, clapping hands, dancing and raising their faces to heaven in song: “Still I will love You and spread Your love to the people.”
The congregation breaks into prayer, for this is the moment when the song was interrupted by Nepal’s magnitude-7.8 earthquake April 25.
They shed tears and cry in reliving the moment together. They were in the fourth-floor room that morning when the quake hit. Someone prayed aloud and others joined. The pastor, Rajaan Tamang, looked up and saw the outer wall shaking and a crack forming in the wall beside him. He knew if they didn’t get off the fourth floor they all might die. They lurched down the stairs and gathered in the field outside, where they saw a building across the street begin to crumble. Seven people died in that building.
A week later during worship, a feeling of thankfulness washes over Tamang as he looks at the congregation.
God took care of them
They survived not just the earthquake but the week since. God has taken care of them — from finding an old tarp with holes for shelter that first night to a friend’s offer of a room for the church to meet this day.
Still the aftermath of the trauma is evident in their tired eyes.
At press time the quake that hit about 50 miles northwest of Kathmandu had claimed the lives of more than 8,400, injuring more than 14,500.
Baptist Global Response (BGR) was ready to respond immediately after the disaster and released $50,000 for initial efforts. The organization called in a Disaster Assessment Relief Team (DART), which arrived May 1 and began working with a local coalition of churches in Kathmandu that had formed a disaster relief committee. Together DART and the committee began to assess and fill needs.
Francis Horton, BGR area director for Central and South Asia, said the disaster overwhelmed locals but they have started to recover as best they can. Some shops in Kathmandu have reopened and people in heavily affected areas are rummaging through debris to find what possessions might have survived the quake.
Rehabilitation steps
“As people begin to dig through the rubble and regain those household items, those personal items, all of that is a huge step toward their rehabilitation just as a family,” Horton said. “The more they can do that, the better their attitudes and their mentality … will be.”
Delivering some supplies, like tarps and rice, was difficult immediately following the quake because local shops had run out of such supplies. But by May 5 a source of rice had been secured.
BGR Executive Director Jeff Palmer said, “Our team and their partners have been able to make deliveries to two communities (outside of the city). In one of these — a community of 45 homes that was completely destroyed — these were the first relief goods the community had seen.”
Horton said the DART team and the local committee would continue to look for “the gaps” where other aid organizations and the government had not yet reached or had overlooked.
Other organizations working hard to aid the Nepali people are Baptist World Alliance, American Red Cross, Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision, UNICEF and Habitat for Humanity International, to name a few.
Nepalis are beginning to get over the initial shock of the destruction and must now come to terms with the long-term reality of rebuilding their lives, said Pat Melancon, BGR’s managing director of disaster response and training.
“In the initial week after the disaster people are not sure what’s needed for long term. Everyone is focused on just surviving,” Melancon said. “Now the reality hits of getting past that stage and starting life.”
For Tamang and other Christians in Nepal the earthquake may have been devastating but they believe God has opened doors to share the gospel through it.
“Our church may be small but we can do important work for the Kingdom,” he said. “Now is the time. People will ask why are we doing this. And we will simply say, ‘Because our God loves you and so do we.’”
BGR leadership and Christians in Nepal asked believers to pray:
- For those who have lost their homes. Officials estimate that nearly 80 percent of homes built in Nepal are not “earthquake ready.” They are made of mud bricks and many crumbled, especially in the mountain villages.
- For the farmers. It’s planting season. If they can’t get crops planted now, the entire country will suffer with a food shortage next year.
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For the people of Nepal to know Jesus as Savior. Less than 3 percent of Nepal’s 28.8 million people are followers of Jesus.
(BGR, BP, TAB)
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