 Methodists provide aid in hard-hit Indonesian province |
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by Linda Bloom |
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BIREUEN, Indonesia (UMNS) – When U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Banda Aceh to survey tsunami damage there, the world’s attention followed. Other scenes of destruction in the Aceh Province have received less notice. The town of Bireuen is one of them, according to the Rev. Fajar Lim of the Gereja Methodist Indonesia (Methodist Church of Indonesia). “As far as you can see, all of the houses of fishermen in Bireuen are demolished,” Lim tells a delegation of visiting United Methodists. Fishing boats also were destroyed and crops cannot be replanted for at least a year. “The salt coming from the ocean water has permeated all the farmland,” he explains. The Methodist church in Bireuen has become a coordination center for assistance to the 11 area camps holding some 8,600 internally displaced people. One service has been to sponsor teams of doctors and nurses from the Chinese Christian Relief Association in Taiwan. Dr. Charles Yeh, a gynecologist, has just arrived in Bireuen on Jan. 13 with a new team from Taiwan. They will provide clinics in the camps for the next week. Of most concern, he says, are infectious diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea. One of his team’s stops will be a camp of about 700 in a resort area known as Bateilik. Families there live under large tents and congregate under trees and along the riverbank. Large metal tanks provide clean drinking water. Although children, who are in joyful abundance at the camp, and the elderly are most vulnerable to disease after such a disaster, Yeh believes the water setup there and at other camps will help contain any major outbreaks. “I think the situation is quite stable,” he says. The Methodist assistance is provided to people of all religions, according to Bishop Rusman Pungka Mual, but their work is sometimes challenged by the fact that they are a minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. “In our Christian ministry, we have encountered numerous difficulties, especially in Banda Aceh and Aceh Province as a whole,” he explains. The response by Indonesian Methodists to the tsunami disaster will continue to receive support from United Methodists through the United Methodist Committee on Relief, according to the Rev. Paul Dirdak, UMCOR’s chief executive. A delegation from the denomination presented a supply of medicines to Yeh and Indonesian Methodists as a symbolic gesture of the desire to assist. “Any amount of pharmaceutical distribution that they want to undertake we will support,” Dirdak adds. Other avenues of support to be investigated, he says, include developing theological tools to use in relationship to the tragedy and assisting with proven methods of water safety and building construction. For example, if Indonesian Methodists encounter a community where clean water is a problem, he says, “We can provide equipment that will stay in that community and purify water for years to come.” Machines that make blocks for building construction have been successful in Mozambique and several other countries, according to Dirdak. In the future, it is possible that UMCOR will serve as an implementing agency for Action by Churches Together, a coalition of religious-based relief organization. In that case, Dirdak says, they would work with the Office Coordination Humanitarian Assistance agency of the United Nations to help determine which communities in the countries affected by the tsunami disaster “are being underserved” by relief groups. “Our expertise is community-based construction and income-generation,” he explains. UMCOR does “accompanied returns,” working on a case-by-case basis with families in camps for the internally displaced to rebuild homes or provide for relocation. Donations to UMCOR’s “South Asia Emergency” relief efforts can be made through local churches or sent directly to UMCOR, 475 Riverside Drive, Room 330, New York, NY 10015. Designate checks for UMCOR Advance #274305 and “South Asia Emergency.” Online donations can be made at www.methodistrelief.org. Those making credit-card donations can call (800) 554-8583. One hundred percent of the money donated to “South Asia Emergency” goes to that relief effort.
Date posted: Jan 14, 2005 |
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