17 August 2023. A mob of over 100 attacked the Christian quarter of the Jaranwala in Faisalabad, Punjab.
Some 17 churches in the area were destroyed, people terrified.
The army was deployed and conditions are still tense.
THE SUFFERING CONTINUES
The aftermath of last year’s flood was all too obvious to the Rapid Response Team visiting devastated areas around Christmas time. They brought warm blankets and other essential items to villagers still living in shock, sheltering in makeshift tents and by the remains of buildings. Dead wood, from once productive orchards, was being collected for fire wood. Nothing of any usefulness remained. Livelihoods have been obliterated. Families, unable to join relatives elsewhere, live in camps or in these ruins. Some have migrated to cities, joining other victims now begging in the streets. Survivors gratefully received the deliveries. The team wants to deliver more…
A CATASTROPHE LIKE NO OTHER
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif addressed the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2022. The catastrophic floods have left one third of his country underwater; destroying crops, orchards, livestock, entire villages, bridges and roads. There is no fresh water, let alone food or dry land in vast areas and millions of children are now at risk of water-borne diseases.
This is a catastrophe that has totally overwhelmed the nation, its effects are felt in every city, village and home.
- “For 40 days and 40 nights, a biblical flood poured down, smashing centuries of weather records, challenging everything we knew about disaster and how to manage it,” Sharif said
“In this ground zero of climate change, 33 million people, including women and children, are now at high risk from health hazards,” he said. Authorities have warned it could take up to six months for the flood waters to recede in the country’s hardest-hit areas, as fears rise over the threat posed by waterborne diseases including cholera and dengue.
The deluge has left 3.4 million children in need of “immediate, lifesaving support,” according to UNICEF, leaving them vulnerable to contracting water-borne diseases, including dengue fever and malaria.
Swaths of the country are “still underwater, submerged in an ocean of human suffering.”
The situation is so overwhelming that it would be easy to concede defeat, but our Rapid Response Teams are eager to assist survivors. We may be few in number, but with your help, we are assisting displaced people.
END BIBLE POVERTY
We believe it is a Human Right to be able to know about the person of Jesus Christ, His life, teaching and great love for all mankind. To that end we support publishing His story into languages and idioms of those who do not have His word. We also support those who are recording Scripture in song music videos people who want to hear His Words in their own heart language.
OUR VALUES
We seek to serve people in need through the relationships teams have developed over the years. As a result our project leaders always have someone to connect with in any part of the country. These networks mean we can obtain grass roots information.
We work from the bottom up not the top down. For example, when one Christian village was almost razed to the ground, we discovered survivors, especially the elderly, desperately needed fans to keep them cool. There were no longer any buildings to shade them. Other aid agencies were delivering food, but top down policies defining what items were ‘aid’ meant they could not deliver vital items such as these. In other crises, families simply needed small amounts of cash, others needed calor gas stoves to cook and keep warm.
We support self sufficiency. We do this through providing key items such a sewing machines, or buy supporting the education of young people.
We support teams demonstrating godly unity and compassion. The teams, often comprised of DTS graduates, pray for traumatised victims, comfort them and take time to empathize and listen. Sometimes that is the best Rapid Relief they can deliver, especially for victims in neglected areas who feel isolated and overlooked.
We seek out the most marginalised. Jesus was always profoundly interested in widows, orphans and the ‘strangers’ in the midst of any society. These are groups with no-one else to care for them. Our teams actively seek them out. During the Sindh flood relief the Army helped us locate and supply neglected groups of widows and children huddled under trees, surrounded by flood waters.
PAST PROJECTS
Ywam Relief Rapid Response Teams have been actively responding to various crises in Pakistan since 2005
Since 2005, YWAM Relief has been responding to the victims of disasters in Pakistan.
When the huge quake hit in 2005 even our own property shook and it was miles away! Rapid Response Teams took bus loads of relief packages to terrified survivors. We sent over a freight container of bedding, hospital equipment and medical supplies, bringing aid to hundreds still amassed on the slopes weeks on. Later we sent sewing machines to help displaced Quake victims move into self sufficiency.
In 2010 and 2011 the province of Sindh was inundated by catastrophic floods. We sent a team of female students from our Discipleship Training School to remote areas where they brought food aid, hope and prayer support to frightened women and children stranded in the open next to what was left of mud homes that had been washed away or submerged along with their crops and most of their livestock.
In 2013, we delivered aid and visited traumatised casualties of the bombing of the church in Peshawar, paying medical bills, purchasing bandages and praying with families in shock.
In 2017 the village of Shanti Nagar was almost completely destroyed during the worst expression of violence. We replaced a burnt out tractor so farmers could work again and we distributed key items according to need.
During 2020 we delivered Covid Relief to isolated casual workers in villages in mountains around Peshawar. Casual workers, who had depended on daily wages, were literally starving due to isolation rules. We brought fresh chickens, oil, flour, lentils and other necessary items to their small communities. They were so grateful for these acts of love and compassion.
WE TRAIN LEADERS
Without leadership, little would get done. Without integrity, leadership collapses. We train young people to grow into maturity. YWAM RELIEF projects depend upon reliable and capable leadership teams with capacity to reach out to needy, traumatised often desperate people. Teams are led by people recognised for their insider knowledge of and respect for the people they serve.
