China Earthquake
May 26, 2008
Dear friends,
I started this report Friday morning, but now it’s Monday evening. Both the disaster and the disaster relief efforts continue unabated.
Please kneel for the people of Sichuan. On Sunday, there was a very serious aftershock that toppled an additional 70,000 homes in Guangyuan prefecture. Against the backdrop of 4.3 million people without homes, this seems like a small number. It’s hard, though, for people to move on with their lives when another batch of homes comes crashing down.
Today (Monday), an evacuation alert went out to about 20,000 people living downstream of quake-lake. The rumors on the streets of Chengdu say that a much larger population was told to move. Another group of people who has had yet another upheaval in their lives.
And so it continues.
HMI’s earthquake response also continues. The 30-member Hong Kong medical team finished up their assignment in the Deyang hospital. They returned to Chengdu tired yet exuberant.
One of the Hong Kong doctors reported:
I asked a nurse whether I could change the dressing on a patient in her ward (which means under her tent). She agreed. I worked with the patient, chatting while I cleaned the wound and applied medicine and a new dressing. When I was still working with the patient, she and another nurse, both from Beijing, came over to watch. Afterwards, these two nurses asked whether I could give them a Bible. I brought them over to the church’s “Kindness and Aid” center where a volunteer talked further with them and arranged to bring them Bibles.
The first Singapore medical team has already taken the Hong Kong team’s place in the Deyang hospital.
On Saturday, I traveled to Guangyuan prefecture to visit the pastors and churches there. This is one of the churches in a county named Jiange. If you could read the red characters, you would see that this church is called “Thanksgiving Church”. Just recently, the people of this church had raised enough money to complete the façade on the front of the building. They had photos from the dedication ceremony so I could see what the church looked like before the earthquake.
On the same trip, I met Tom. Remarkably animated, engaging and cute. He kept us entertained for much of the trip in child-suitable ways.
I learned that Tom watched part of his school collapse. When asked whether any of the students died, his face dropped, but only slightly. He held up one finger. The questioner asked whether that meant one student and he nodded. He got his voice and facial expressions back quickly but for a moment fingers and nods were the best way to communicate.
He's doing great; but I was acutely aware that he has seen something that a 10-year-old should never have to witness. Counseling and play-therapy are going to be so important for Tom and the huge number of children whose lives have been affected.
While I was traveling around the bumpy roads of Guangyuan prefecture, another HMI group returned to Pengzhou county with a truck loaded with the very supplies that the pastor requested. The group visited a village and listened to people telling their stories.
Tomorrow, pastors from many of the affected areas will come to Chengdu for two days of training at HMI. International disaster experts from two of HMI’s partner organizations have come to listen to the pastors’ experience and help them think through what their next steps might be. There will also be three counselors holding sessions to build up the pastors personally and to help them shepherd their flocks.
Hua Mei International will empower registered churches and their local governments in earthquake-affected areas in Sichuan Province with financial and human resources to respond to relief and rehabilitation needs.
Hua Mei will gratefully receive donations and will coordinate short-term teams and individual volunteers within the frame work of our strategic plan.
Thank you for your prayers and support.
Sincerely,
Joy.
M. Joy Paulsen
HuaMei International Education and Training Center
Guo Guang Building, 6th Floor
265 Hong Xing Lu, 4 Duan
Chengdu, 610016, Sichuan
China