Our Work
Flooding in Pakistan
November 8
Bruce Piercey is Samaritan's Purse Projects Manager for Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He recently returned from Pakistan.
October 21
Helping families survive
Samaritan’s Purse continues to respond to Pakistan’s worst floods in at least 80 years. A local partner sent in the following report, reminding us of the importance of praying for people impacted by the disaster, especially for Pakistani Christians who might not receive any other assistance.
Shehzad Masih recalled the horror of the night when the floods swept in.
“When the water level increased in the Indus River, we were warned by the government to go to a secure place within six to eight hours,” he said. “Our village is in a slum and far from the city and the roads are not good to drive. On that night there was a great rush. Everybody was trying to go first to be saved and there were few buses available to get out before the flood. We could not get transportation, so we called someone in Karachi and a bus came to take our people out from the village. We left all our belongings on the roofs of our houses, and at the church roof, and saved our lives.”
But the troubles were just beginning for Shehzad and the Christian community from his village.
“After a few weeks, we returned to our village and found that all of our belongings were taken by thieves,” he said. “They even took the main gate of our church. Not only were our things gone, but also the flood destroyed all our farms completely. Nothing remained.”
The group applied for help from the government, but so far has received nothing. Their only assistance has come from local Christians working with Samaritan’s Purse, who have provided food and water and other emergency supplies.
“Now Bishop Mushtaq (an SP partner) is supporting our families and put me into his team to help Christian IDPs in our district,” Shehzad said.
October 7
We take water for granted
Bruce Piercey is Samaritan's Purse Projects Manager for Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He is currently in Pakistan working with our local partners.
We take water for granted. Chlorinated water comes out of our taps, toilets flush and there is usually soap nearby to wash our hands.
Our need of water to sustain our health and lives is in fact desperate and this becomes obvious only when it is not available. There is an enormous excess of water in Pakistan, with whole valleys and many villages still submerged after almost 2 months. Unfortunately, almost all this water is seriously contaminated with human and animal waste, pesticides, heavy metals from industry and of course a vast array of invisible microbes that can sicken and kill. The problem is complicated by the sheer numbers of people affected, in the millions.
One of our local partners has installed an aptly named “Living Waters™” filter in a camp near the huge city of Karachi. The camp houses about 7,500 people and the filter provides safe chlorinated water for drinking and cooking for half of the camp and the government trucks in water for the other half, but this is not filtered. There are only 28 latrines for the whole camp and no water to flush them, and there is little water and soap for washing.
Most days the temperatures are in the mid 30s. Human waste is scattered everywhere drying in the sun and loading the dust with as much e-coli as the water. People have tents or tarps under which they lay lethargically. The residents complain of a growing incidence of diarrheal illnesses. Babies are being born in these camps and many will die without notice to any but their families. There is no medical treatment available.
Is there a coping strategy is to witness human suffering on this massive scale? Many adopt a stance of objectivity and focus on the task at hand, but I believe that can lead to a permanent hardening of the heart that I don’t want. You can try to focus on those you are able to help and not think about the rest but the rest inevitably intrude (two women at the government water truck got into a fist fight over water and one came to us for help).
As a follower of Jesus I ask in prayer for a little of his eyes to see and his amazing heart of compassion. It seems this prayer is always answered. This time it was watching a mother, with what appeared to be a new baby laying in her lap, ever so gently dipping her hand in a bowl of water and washing/cooling her baby drop by drop. I watched for a few seconds and then feeling like an intruder to this tender moment I moved on. This mother’s love brought momentary relief from an otherwise unbearable scene.
October 1
Granny rules
Bruce Piercey is Samaritan's Purse Projects Manager for Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He is currently in Pakistan working with our local partners.
The massive flood in the Indus river valley has been described as a once in a lifetime flood. We are in a camp of 50 families displaced a kilometre or two from their village which is still under several feet of water. Everyone here lived in a mud walled home and in the flooded area these homes are completely dissolved. This area is 30 km from the banks of the Indus.
Walking towards me, I see a very small figure carrying a very large load of grass on her head. Which is heavier I can’t guess. As she gets closer I realize she is beyond ancient. I ask (through the interpreter) if she will talk to me. With a resigned sigh she throws the load to the ground. The conversation goes something like this:
“How old are you?”
“I don’t know I am very old” (it is unlikely she can count).
“We think 85” says a village leader.
“When did you begin carrying things on your head?”
“I have done this since I was a small child.”
“Has there ever been another flood like this one?”
“The one in 1973 was very bad but we didn’t have to leave the village. This is 3 or 4 times bigger.”
I learn more: This is the first time we have had to leave. Everyone got here safely, including all the animals but it is hard to keep them fed. We have no grass left in the camp so we must walk to find this. And then we must carry it home. To her remarkable story I make some obvious comment on how strong and hard working she is and she looks at me is as if my questions and comments were exceptionally stupid, but smiles with pride. It takes 2 people to lift the load back up.
This brief encounter was a glimpse of the life-long toil of women in much of Asia (A few minutes later I see a young girl of about 8 washing clothes by hand). But it also illustrates the fight and determination of these folks to get on with life. There are no slackers in evidence here. That is a community spirit where our assistance will be well used and have leverage for the recovery to follow. Meeting this great-Granny renews hope.
The portrait of helpless victims sitting about waiting for rescue and help from government and aid NGOs is misleading. No one is waiting for this help because no one has much expectation that hope will come. When it does, as through our local partners, it is both a surprise and the potential to begin a lasting relationship founded on renewed hope and an object lesson in God’s sacrificial love.
September 29
Preconceptions eclipsed
Bruce Piercey is Samaritan's Purse Projects Manager for Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He is currently in Pakistan working with our local partners.
As is always the case, the reality eclipses my preconceptions. I can imagine homeless people coping in an emergency camp because I have seen this before. What I have not seen before are herds of livestock living with them; horses, donkeys, cows, goats, water buffalo and camels (and all that such cohabitation implies for health and sanitation). For those lucky enough to have escaped the flood with some of their animals there is hope of a return home with their livelihood as herders intact. But first they must find fodder and water and keep the animals alive.
I knew that crops had been drowned in the flood water, but I never imagined mile after mile of fields lined with the dead stems of cotton plants and sugar cane rotting from the bottom up. They stand as mute testimony to the lost income and bleak future for farmers; now deeply in debt, having borrowed to plant a crop that will never be harvested, and without means to plant the next crop. Most farmers lived in mud-walled homes which have dissolved into the flood waters. They return home to try and dig old bed frames and clothing from the mud, to dry ruined cotton to pack into new mattresses. That much I expected, but I didn’t expect to find that many had carried belongings high up into tree branches where it is waiting to be retrieved.
My friend Herman asked me, “If we were in this situation would we survive?” It was rhetorical and the answer is “not a chance.” But as the waters recede people are returning to rebuild. They are exhausted and underfed, their water is polluted and brackish, but they are hard at work. It would be easy to romanticize their ingenuity and determination. While this struggle may be near to the edge of a life and death battle, it is for them a continuation of a life long struggle to stay alive.
Some others aspects of the struggle are not surprising but rarely considered: what is it like to lose all personal privacy, for a woman to have to wash in a scummy pond in sight of men (in a culture of veils and extreme modesty)? What are the health impacts of women “holding it” all day to be able to relieve yourself in the dark in a field? Clinics in the camps have almost no medicine to begin with and are certainly not equipped to cope with the needs of pregnant women and newborns. People have lost all sense of the safety and security that they had in their home village (in fact violent crimes are much more likely in camps). The river upon which you have depended for a lifetime has become your enemy. Your reference points are gone. As my host put it, “people are suffering trauma, they just don’t know it, so life goes on.”
We are able to do some things to help. Latrines offer not only greater sanitation and hygiene but privacy and a place to wash (the doors lock). Potable water is being filtered and is being trucked to ever more disbursement points reducing the distance people have to carry it. A group of women from a church in the nearby city have volunteered and are being trained to approach and counsel pregnant women and new mothers, and a female doctor is available a few hours each day. Some electric lights provide some safety in the vicinity of the water filter plants. But there is so much more to do and not enough people or resources to get it done.
And then there are the needs which we seem powerless to meet. A very elderly man with a long white beard and crinkled face beckons us urgently to follow him. We think it is to see a damaged village mosque, but no, it is the nearby cemetery. I see the grave stones all askew and then at the ancient man’s gesture I see a line of about 5 tombs toppled and ripped open. “These are my brothers” he says with a look of sadness in his eyes that only a life time of struggle could shape. I have no words in reply.
All those I have met see this as a God-given opportunity to show love for their neighbours and to build bridges of trust. I am so glad to be here and that we are able to do something for these people. I wish there was more we could do, but I am grateful for what has been done so far.
September 27
Reflections en route to Pakistan
Bruce Piercey is Samaritan's Purse Projects Manager for Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He is currently in Pakistan working with our local partners.
In the good Samaritan story we know the identity of all the key characters except for one, the robbery victim. Was he from Judah or Samaria or a foreigner to both? We assume that he was affluent because he was robbed but otherwise his identity remains hidden. I suspect that omission is deliberate. This victim is representative of our neighbour(s) in need. There is no qualification or limitation to the command to love our neighbours. Rather they are our neighbour because of the need not their identity. I am reminded of the scene in the movie Titanic (based on fact?) where the crew put the comfort of the first class passengers ahead of saving the lives of those traveling in steerage. My family legend has my grandmother with my 2 year old father braving u-boats and traveling steerage from Canada back to Britain in 1915 to be closer to my grandfather who was fighting in the trenches of France so the scene hit a nerve.
What instinct or cultural conditioning leads us to pass judgement on who is worthy of our care and help? Why do we ask rhetorically “who is my neighbour”? Why do we find it easier to open our hearts and wallets to some and not others? Much of the difference may be due to the frequency and intensity of media coverage, however, I fear we have we make a distinction between loving our neighbours and loving our enemies. The millions left homeless by flooding in Pakistan are living in the homeland of Taliban and Al Q terrorists, but does that disqualify them from our compassion? If Jesus were to tell the good Samaritan story today he might well have made the lead character the good Taliban. The people of Pakistan are not our enemies but even if they were Jesus has already commanded us to love them. Our enemies are also our neighbours.
In every natural disaster, war or famine it is the poor who suffer disproportionately. Their lives were a struggle to survive before the crisis and an earthquake or a flood just intensifies this struggle with the burden of grief and loss of hope. The overall statistics of those dead or homeless may fixate the media but each family suffers in much the same way from homelessness, disease, hunger, deeper poverty and hopelessness. These are husbands and fathers shamed by their inability to feed and protect their families, these are mothers whose souls are shadowed by the fear of losing yet another child to disease or famine; these are children who continue to laugh and play in the midst of rubble until their bodies no longer have the strength. These are you and me, except, they are traveling life in steerage while we journey in first class. Dare we put our comfort before the sacrifice necessary to save their lives?
In our media saturated culture the news of victims reaches us from every far corner of the world. It seems that this news is becoming ever more frequent and gross in magnitude. Thus we are on an almost daily basis put to the same test as the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan: to respond with compassion or not?
I shall put these thoughts to the test over the next days. It is not without a small measure of fear that I venture into a land where well organized groups announce plots to kill those offering aid. Such fear presses me to suppress the love and compassion that God has set upon my heart. I pray that His perfect love will drive out all such fear.
September 23
Samaritan’s Purse and our local partners are continuing our work in Pakistan, bringing safe water, emergency food and sanitation to people affected by the worst floods to ever hit Pakistan.
In Sindh province we are providing women in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps with medical checkups, treatments, and feminine hygiene products.
Samaritan’s Purse has also provided two Living Water Treatment Systems™ that have each been providing up to 3,000 people with safe water on a daily basis in Sindh province.
World Health Organization officials estimate that 8 million people need direct humanitarian assistance in Pakistan.
"My one-year-old son Shenwaz has been very sick with high fever and vomiting," Barsumri told the WHO from the informal settlement in Sindh's Jamshoro district where her family first took refuge in mid-August. "It is difficult living here; we get food but not enough. We want to go back home but we don't know how or when we will do so."
In some parts of Pakistan flood waters are receding, but the emergency situation continues in southern Sindh province. Roads and homes remain submerged in water and up to 20,000 people are still being displaced daily.
With files from Aphaluck Bhatiasevi WHO Communications Officer Source: http://www.emro.who.int/eha/pakistan_floods_sindh_story.htm
August 24
One of the worst disasters in history is unfolding in Pakistan as flooding from monsoon rains has affected over 17 million people, leaving many stranded without food, water, or shelter.
Samaritan’s Purse, working with trusted local partners, is addressing safe water and sanitation access, and distributing hygiene supplies and food to those displaced by the flooding. This is of vital importance, as there is a high-potential for water-borne disease.
“The potential for loss of life from secondary diseases like cholera or typhoid is mind boggling," says Bruce Piercey, Samaritan’s Purse Canada’s project manager for Asia. “But it is not too late to take effective preventive actions if we act now.”
Partners on the ground in Pakistan are currently helping to provide a total of more than 1,000 families with necessities including food, water, emergency shelter, and hygiene supplies.
The United Nations estimates that 1.2 million homes have been destroyed by the flooding along the Indus River Basin and into the province of Sindh, one of the world’s largest agricultural regions.
Our partners report that families are spending their days out in the open or under trees, surrounded by water, as temperatures soar above 40 degrees Celsius. Crops and animals have also been swept away, leading to fears about long-term food security for families affected by the floods.
This year has been difficult and supporters of Samaritan’s Purse have already shown themselves to be extremely generous. We are asking you to join us in supporting the people of Pakistan in their hour of greatest need.
August 23
Donations made by individual Canadians to Samaritan’s Purse will be matched by the Government of Canada to its Pakistan Floods Relief Fund managed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). CIDA will allocate the funds in the Pakistan Floods Relief Fund to eligible Canadian international humanitarian and development organizations according to its guidelines and criteria. While Samaritan’s Purse is an eligible organization, our application to CIDA is not guaranteed to be approved. For more detailed information please see the following link: Pakistan Floods Relief Fund - CIDA
Ways You Can Help
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Pray
Pray for the physical and spiritual needs of the flooding victims who have lost everything and for those who provide assistance in the Name of Jesus Christ. |  | GivePlease help Samaritan’s Purse bring humanitarian assistance to the people of Pakistan. Donate Here.
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