Oeration Mobilisation is helping residents affected by the toxic sludge spill.

With the residue covering 40 sq km, emergency workers and volunteers helping residents in the heavily damaged town of Kolontar are using the Bus4Life vehicle run by Operation Mobilisation (OM) as a base for their relief efforts.

Meanwhile, those normally involved in this literature distribution ministry have put aside their plans and are now assisting the clean-up and counselling those who have lost homes.

Within 48 hours of the 4th October disaster, the president of the Hungarian branch of Baptist Aid contacted OM Hungary’s Bus4Life coordinator and asked if the vehicle could be made available.

The organisation was co-ordinating Baptist pastors and church volunteers to help with relief work in the worst affected areas, and wanted to use the bus as a base for operations. Within an hour, the bus was ready to go.

By 7 October, the OM team had gathered drinking water and food supplies and arrived in Kolontar, close to the centre of the disaster. The OM workers have since filled a range of support roles, from supplying aid workers with refreshments to comforting the bereaved.

Bus4Life is a pioneering ministry that takes Christian literature and resources to unreached villages across East Europe. Church members from the surrounding areas then join short and long-term OM workers in using the vehicle as a platform to proclaim Christ to the community.

Organised events including puppet shows, balloons and evangelistic films attract young and old alike to the bus. Christians from the area then follow-up any contacts who have expressed a desire to know more about faith in Jesus.