Dear respected brothers in Christ,
Loving greetings to you all in the precious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May grace of God, love and peace always be with you.
As you all know that Nepal had 7.9 earthquakes on April 25th of 2015 and many more aftershocks. Many people lost their lives, thousands of houses were destroyed and many are in hospital. We give thanks to our Almighty God who is protecting us from all kinds dangers and perils from this natural disaster. We express our thankfulness toward all of your generous love and regular financial help and spiritual encouragement. We are writing this as an earthquake report on behalf of all Nepali Christians.
All brothers and sisters from Kathmandu valley are always busy after earthquake. We could not be able to meet all of us in one place. We have invited Christian leaders around Kathmandu valley on Friday, July 3rd, 2015 at Brother Jerry's house: six Nepali men and six Nepali women attended and had earth quake meeting. These men and women are the prominent active Christian leaders of the Kathmandu valley who are working together for the growth of the Lord's work in Nepal. We discussed almost four hours on earthquake related subjects. We talked in the below mentioned outline:
A. Review of past 10 weeks:
We have accomplished much good and needed work. Soon after earthquake we sent five Christian leaders at Rasuwa and Dhading, Himalayan districts where most of the houses were totally destroyed. This is in Northern part of Nepal. They returned after 11 days of survey and immediate relief work. We have 12 congregations and nearly 400 Christian families' lives in those districts. We have provided food materials for 600 families. We are going to distribute more tarpaulin, blankets and zinc roofing in coming days.
Another group went to distribute relief materials at South-west and midst of Nepal called Makwanpur, Chitwan and Tanahun where we have 12 congregations and 235 Christian's families. Most of our graduated students and other preachers are actively working in these areas. We have provided food materials like rice, lentils (Daal), cooking oil, salt, tarpaulin, general medicine, and blankets to the Christians and nonChristian families.
We did similar relief work at Kathmandu valley. All of our preachers, Nepali Christian men and women, All of our students and many adults have helped us in medical camp, food distribution.
We believe that we have made big improvements among ourselves in Nepal. But still we have little gap and problems in communication. Many outside people were willing to come and help. We have sent our reports to share our priorities and plans. But most of the outside groups who want to come and help hesitate to share their proper plan. At the same time we can't tell them not to come. We found like these little problems in proper communication. Now we learned our weaknesses and strengths. This kind of relief work is really new to us. We all are learning new experiences.
B. Current Priorities …… Monsoon Season:
We are searching and purchasing metal sheets for weather protection. We have provided some of them at Kathmandu and Southern part Tanahun. We will provide zinc roof or metal steel for people. We have purchased 2000 pieces of blankets and mosquito nets. We will purchase some more dried foods that will not perish like rice, lentils, beans, cooking oil, salt, clothing and mattresses. We will supply them in greatest needs of Makwanpur, Chitwan, Rasuwa and Dhading and other affected areas. We contacted metal sheet manufacturing and will purchase 300 bundles of them. We found problems in transportation and delivery due to monsoon. God's grace and guidance is always with us. We can do all things through Jesus Christ, who strength us.
C. Current Financial information:
God has opened the hearts of thousands of people around the world for our needs and help. We are thankful for your generous love and kind help. We are receiving financial help from many individual people and congregations.
I (Gajendra) have Cash Nepali Rupees Rs. 2,862,531.0
Bro. Parsuram Cash Nepali Rupees Rs. 411,000.0
In our bank Cash Nepali Rupees Rs. 3,967,957.0
D. Spiritual Ministry:
Every time we travel to deliver relief items, we also plan to have Bible classes and devotionals for adults and children. Our ladies want to be active in this ministry with the women and children in the villages. Some of our young adults will also be active. We are already hearing stories about how the attendance at some worship services has increased because our brothers and sisters have been sharing the items we deliver to them with their neighbors. We have decided to re-visit again for spiritual encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have already purchased Bibles, song books and Children Bible story books in a large quantity to distribute for spiritual encouragement. So that our Christian brethren will be encouraged and nonChristians will have opportunity to know God, Jesus and His people on the earth.
E. Foreign Groups:
All foreign groups have their own motives toward earthquake relief work. We are very much worried about their time, money, labor. We are learning that many groups have complicated and have ulterior motives for what they do in Nepal. Some of them come more for Fund Raising Publicity than to help the local people.
One man came at 9 AM, took pictures of destroyed building, pictures of him giving a few bags of rice, and left KTM at 3 PM the same day. One man has been here twice. We don’t know of any good he has done. Some groups request information from us while they conceal their plans. Other groups have been extremely helpful with advice, good with communication, and generous with financial support.
F. Future?
The job of restoring some form and degree of normal life for the people will be a very long, labor intensive and financially costly work of love.
Our goal of the future or after this monsoon will be rebuilding homes and repairing homes of our Christian brothers and sisters. These must begin small for the first winter. Then, hopefully, they can be made larger and better over 2-5 years.
If the Lord is willing and we have sufficient funds we will try to replace farm animals that were killed. These are needed for sustaining daily life. We will consider them to provide cooking pots, pans, knives, beds and essential furniture and school supplies.
I (Gajendra) am going with two Christian brothers from the 11 day May trip to the mountains, back to the remote mountains by helicopter on Wednesday and returning on Monday. We will visit a number of villages and get information of current conditions, priorities for the next 3 months. We will encourage the brothers to get organized for rebuilding, and come back with information that will help us use whatever resources we have in October for the greatest good. We will take food materials and blankets and mosquito nets with us to distribute them.
Most of the poor people in the villages cannot supply the money to meet these needs. They will have to provide the hours of hard labor. Others outside their villages will also have to supply labor to deliver needed items. The money to meet these needs after the monsoon and extending for the next 5 years is nowhere to be found in Nepal.
We need your help. We need the kind of help where there is clear communication, the actions match the words, and there is accountability from us to you and from you to us.
We are spending huge amounts of money for delivering relief materials. It has been suggested that we buy a used truck to help with deliveries. This could be useful now and also over the next number of years. Maybe non-financial providing organizations such as Mission Resources Network and others could establish cooperative communication with other groups so they could team-up for some special projects such as this. This would be just one item that we might put on a “wish list” were we to ever get bold enough to allow ourselves to think this way. This is all new to us. We are learning fast and with a fair amount of wisdom also. We want to hear, and even plead for, your suggestions from your years of experience knowing what works and what may be non-productive.
Once again, thank you for your love, support and spiritual encouragement. May God bless you all.
Brothers in Christ,
Gajendra Deshar gajendra_deshar@yahoo.com
Parsuram Sunchuri psunchuri@yahoo.com
Jerry Golphenee jrgx21958@gmail.com