thegospeltoindia.com

Greetings to all: Continuing the previous newsletter on my latest trip to India

On September 27, I completed my teaching assignment with the young men at the Northeast Bible Institute. As I was travelling down the serpentine road to the airport brother Jim Waldron called me concerning the vast flooding that was occurring in the Assam valley surrounding the vast Brahmaputra River. Brother Jim recently having arrived back in the USA was willing to locate funds for me to go in to this area and do relief work in the name of Jesus Christ. This I was eager to do.

THE RELIEF ASSESSMENT

On September 29, 2010 Tifusa Yobin, Simeon Yobin and I left for the Northeastern corner of Assam where a devastating flood has struck this region due to the overflowing of the Brahmaputra River and its tributaries. The Brahmaputra enters India in the far eastern
state of Arunachal Pradesh after traveling hundreds of miles across Tibet as the Tsangpo from its birthplace near the lake of Mansarovar. It is one of the world's largest, on a scale with the Indus, Mississippi, and the Nile. Almost yearly along its long and winding course flooding occurs and brings death, devastation and disease to those who inhabitant the unfortunate areas. After travelling over two hours we reached the swollen Brahmaputra River where we had to travel on make shift barges. They basically were extended wide bottom canoes with a keel. Planks were laid down from the shore to the boat and other planks were used for the three cars (maximum load) to board the boat. After an hour traversing the river we made it to the other side where once again the planks were laid out for each car to come ashore. While not approved by any travel agency I know, it worked quite well. Once loaded back into our vehicle we travelled on following the course of the Brahmaputra diverting in many areas where the river had overflowed its banks. Our destination is the Dhamaji and Lakhimpur Districts. It is here that over 300,000 people have been affected by the flood.

The flooding was severe as we approached the area. Most of the villages were from one to ten miles off the road and required us to walk and wade at time through knee deep water. For the first time that I can remember since I was a kid I waked a couple of miles with mud squishing between my toes. It was all in all quite enjoyable and I wondered when my mother would show up and scold me for naughty behavior. We saw several villages totally cut off by deep water or required going through swift water over our waist to reach. With prayer for these villages we had to move on to where we could gain access for we had no boat and no access to a boat in these remote regions.

Through the great generosity of congregations in the USA, Australia and perhaps other places we have an operation fund of 7 ½ lakhs (15000.00 dollars). This seems small but In India, (despite runaway inflation and the rising value of the rupee against the dollar) this amount will go a long way. We visited three villages and made records of three more. It is these villagers who aresuffering greatly that we have decided to help. The names of the villages are Diheri with 350 houses (bamboo huts on stilts), Nepali Khati with 185 houses, Kechokhata with 72 houses, Glo-ria Ahana with 120 houses, Sasala with 20 houses, Adrasha with 56 houses and Kapatol with 62 houses.

The villagers are suffering from many problems. Their greatest problem is a lack of food and par-ticularly rice— the staple food of India. All of the rice fields which were at the harvesting stage were totally destroyed. This is their basic food for the entire year. So now they must try and find a way to survive for a year until another crop is produced. Many of the hand-dug wells were de-stroyed by the floods and clean water is of great concern. With the flood has come the sisters of diseases -Cholera ( a severe form of dysentery that can kill in a matter of hours), Malaria, Typhoid Fever, skin diseases, worms, and a host of other psychological and physical problems.

THE RELIEF PLAN

After our assessment we left for a large town about two hours away (Lakhimpur) where we made arrangements to purchase critically needed items for each home in the villages. We purchases:
800 – 20 Kilo bags of medium quality rice;
800 - 1 Kilo package of Dal (a small bean) for rice toppings;
800 - 1 package of mustard oil for cooking, (you would not like this oil - Quaker State 40 weight would be better)
800 - 1 package of salt (1 lb). This will be helpful to create a rehydration drink for those with Cholera.
800 - 1 bar of Dettol (antibiotic soap) for helping to combat the skin diseases and infections
800 - 1 bar of laundry soap for the hand washing of clothes.

In addition, we plan to open a medical clinic for the treatment of many sicknesses in the villages.
Today, back in Dibrugarh, Assam, we have purchased many antibiotics, fever, malaria, dysentery, gastric, worming, skin, rehydration drinks and a host of other medicines. 36 different medications in all. Through our efforts in relief work in the tsunami of 2004, the Bihar flood of 2008 and the Bhutan earthquake of 2009 we have educated ourselves on the medicines needed in natural disaster events. I look forward to the day we can have a real doctor who can respond to our be-nevolent efforts from either India or the USA or both. Until then we work carefully and with medical guid-ance in trying to assist the urgent care needs of these poor people.

In each village I asked the head man (the village chief) if the Indian government had been in to help. They responded that only a few came and gave out some malaria medication and then left. Now the people are suffering greatly and are so grateful for our help. They do not understand why we care and why we are helping them. I emphasize in every vil-lage that we are here for and because of Jesus Christ. What we do for them we do in HIS name and for HIS glorification. The village headmen one by one asked us to come to their villages and talk about this Jesus Christ. Hopefully we will go back into these villages in November and preach to them of the Savior who saves in His name not only the flesh through good works but more importantly the sinful spirit of man through HIS redeeming blood.

This Saturday, October 2 we will return to set up the clinic and the food supplies shall arrive on two large trucks on Sunday afternoon. (In India Sunday is a regular work day – hopefully one day most people will understand it as the Lord’s Day of worship)

The students from our Theophilus Bible Institute will go house to house giving our a token ( a piece of paper stamped with our school logo). With this token they can come to our distribution point and pick up the critically needed supplies.
The students will hand deliver the supplies to widows and the handicapped in the villages. Begin-ning Sunday we will distribute supplies and begin helping the sick in the medical clinic.
We will help 800 families. The food will last a family of four about two weeks. I wish we could do more. 800 out of 300,000 are not a lot but it is something. I am not sure how they will survive through the coming year until another harvest is gathered. Perhaps we can redistribute rice in a month or so if additional funds become available. However I am thankful to God for His Church, His people who shine as lights in this dark world in which we live. I know what we do open hearts and doors of people to the Great Physician. Thank God there is a balm in Gilead and also in Assam, India.

THE RELIEF EFFORT

October 5: We returned today from our mission work in the flood stricken area of Assam. Our medical mission program went well. We treated 310 people with various illnesses and dis-eases. We started on Sunday around 9 AM and went none stop until 6 p.m. when it was to dark to see anymore. On Monday we started at 6 A.M. and went to about 3:30 when we had to stop and flee the area.

The rice and food product distribution did not go so well. We had gone into the villages and distributed tokens and ask people to come on Monday for distri-bution of items. We said only tokens would receive rice. However we had set up in a school house in a village where we had not distributed tokens. The headman said their village was okay and for us to give rice to other villages. However the villagers dis-agreed and demanded rice from us. Also other vil-lages heard and showed up agitating the crowd by now over 1200 very hungry and starving people who desperately wanted rice.

We tried to form a Q - line (Standing in an orderly, straight line) but that was impossible. Every time I tried or Tifusa and Simeon tried to begin distribution they would in mass press against us trying to get the rice. Women also pressed very hard to get to each bag I would try and hand out. Several times I was pressed so hard against the door I thought I would be crushed by the people. One old lady was pushed down and trampled on and I think badly injured.

We had tried to arrange police help before beginning and shortly afterwards several time but they refused to be involved. They claimed we had to file a proper form a least a week in advance and petition their help but I think they were somewhat frightened by the angry crowd now becoming mob-like. There were a number of young agitators in the crowd who were trying to insight a riot etc.

The mission effort was a learning curve. There were several occasion all of us thought we would die by machete or stoning. Men were shouting they would kill us if they received no rice. One brother was hit several times and fled into the medical clinic. Only by God's help we are here to-day. The medical mission work I think is what saved us. All were starving and ruthless men were trying to steal the rice but those I had treated were helpful in our escape. I know what one will do when they are starving. Brute mentality takes over. Even the women were fighting each other. Many bags of rice were torn up and spilt on the ground by pulling and snatching.

Before long the different villages begin to fight among themselves. We had decided now to give to the headman of each tribe the rice allotted to them and let them distribute to each village member as he saw their need. The villagers did not like this at all. those who had tokens demanded to be first for rice. Those in the village we were set up in demanded first for rice. Those who had no to-ken demanded to have rice as well.

We did find several strong armed men who helped us keep the crowd from overtaking the storage room and we would hand rice out to them but after that it was anybody's rice. They fought each other with many fist blows. I continued my medical treatments in one room as we listened to the terrible fighting occurring outside. I finally shut down the clinic and went to try and stop the fighting. We had to lock our doors on the inside as several times they tried to break in on us. Now the crowds are angry and have threaten to kill us when we left the school compound. I realized when the rice was gone those who had no rice would rise up in great anger and probably kill my twelve fellow-laborers and even me - but not likely. I think my medical work had created many people who sought also to protect us. I went over to the rice stor-age area having fought (not with punches) my way through the crowd and try to restore some peace along with Tifusa. Simeon is now being kept out of view as some sought to kill him on sight. At about 100 bags left I had all of the students to leave (some of us having to climb over a wall to escape) Tifusa and I made our way out and left quickly while everyone's attentions was on the remaining rice. Our two lorries were waiting down the road from the school and we were able to hastily reach them and left unscathed though we left many items behind and much damage was done to the school house by the angry , hungry mob.

I knew there would be much violence when we left but I was concerned about the consequences to the stu-dents once all the rice was gone. Much damage was done to the benches and desks of the students at the school. The principal had called school off and sent them home. A wise decision. Anyway we got away by slipping out of the gate or over a wall and ran to our vehicles. We spent the night at our driver’s house. He was gracious to us and provided our every need. We talked with him (Tifusa primarily) and I believe he will convert to Christ very soon.

His village is in the jungle reserve so many elephants. Their grass huts are up off the ground quite a bit and the pigs live underneath. They make much noise during the night. I am not sure who snores the most—me or the pig. I was asked to treat a number of people in the village before leaving this morning. News get out you have a little medical experience and they all come for much needed help. One man had leprosy really bad. I examined his foot which looked like Swiss cheese with hole very deep in many places. Not much that I could do but I notice he walked barefooted and many people step in his tracks. Not a good idea. They took me to see a woman age 35 who got encephalitis around age ten ( very high fever dam-aged her brain). They had to keep her arms tied at all times behind her back be-cause she would bite and chew her fingers. I gave her some hard candy and she really like it. Gave her a brief examination and suggested they get her tubes tied for cleanliness and protec-tion. She only sits and screams very loud from time to time. Her poor mother who is very old must take care of her constantly.

I am back in Dibrugarh now and will leave in the morning for Lakla and the MSV. I am thank you for the op-portunity to do the work. Overall it was a good experience for the students to be involved in. They were greatly frightened but afterwards realized that God is in control and will provide for us. I told them the worst thing they can do for us is to send us on to heaven and that is not a bad thing!

POST ASSESSMENT

The starving people in this disaster stricken area continues to need our help. Their angry actions were wrong but the desperation in their faces should emotions not reason was in charged that day. Soon if additional funds will come I want to go back into this area with many Bibles, medicines and mosquito nets. They are ready for the Gospel. We have prepared the soil by our good works and now let us go back in with the Bread of Life and the Living Water of Jesus.

Please send a check to help in this work. Ten dollars will buy five Bibles. Ten dollars will provide medicine for Malaria, Typhoid Fever, Dengue Fever and many other ailments. Ten dollars will provide 3 mosquito nets to a family. Ten dollars will make a difference. God bless you all.