Sunday, June 21, 2009

godfather



Today was an intense day for me in Haiti. We went from house to house visiting people and asking about their need. We stopped by the house of a woman we had already begun to help on a previous trip. At first I did not recognize her and later realized that she had been pregnant the last time that I saw her. She gave birth to a girl 1 1/2 months ago. When we walked into her mud thatch house she picked up the baby and gave her to one of the team members with me. We began to speak to her about what difficulties she was encountering. She shared with us about her 8 children and the troubles she faces in supporting them since her husband died of an illness in January. Her oldest child is a boy of 17 who has taken the responsibility of the man of the house. He attempts to provide for the family by catching sardine like fish in the ocean with a makeshift net.

As we began to leave our team member gently handed the infant back and the woman immediately gave the baby to me and said that I was the baby's godfather. While the baby tried to suckle on the sleeve of my shirt because she doesn't receive enough nutrition from her mother's milk the mother began to cry feeling the weight of her hopeless situation. I assured her that I heard her need and would do what I could. My prayer is that Father God would be a godfather through me. Pray for us as we seek to relieve the suffering of this family.

Brian

Thursday, June 4, 2009

IDPs Crisis Response in Pakistan

These are the refugees that have come to help clean up and prepared our camp for their families to move to Dadar. They are working hard to prepare the facilities at Dadar so that their families could move here. We are using the refugees as a worker so that most of the money spent can go to the people affected by this crisis. These men represent 25 families approximately 170 plus people.


Below is one of several water tanks we are installing. We had to run an water line about one half mile to this tank.






While in Islamabad we were able to have a relaxed, enjoyable meeting with Muhammad Yousif at his family residence. He has been instrumental in facilitating our acquiring the facilities in Dadar for our refugees camp.
Tasleem Khan called a high level meeting of all the involved government agencies to assists us in setting up our refugee camp at Dadar.

MUHAMMAD YOUSIF, NAZIM (GOVERNOR)OF DISTRICT MANSEHRA.

TASLEEM KHAN, ASSISTENT DISTRICT COORDINATION OFFICER OF MANSEHRA

While we were waiting for permission we were distributing food, housing families in an already rented rooms by Waheed Alam for the Jabber Gali boys that needed the place to stay while going to school in Mansehra. We also gave out money to refugees we met on the streets and purchased formula for babies.





We are transporting the refugees into the rented rooms.
This is all the provision these five families had time to bring with them when the flied the fighting
Waheed pictured with a few of the forty refugees that we put up in the rented rooms.