Keep giving to Pakistan, says GFA

Gospel For Asia has made an impassioned plea to the Christian community to continue supporting millions of flood victims in Pakistan and northern India.

Although floodwaters are receding in Pakistan, whole villages and vast areas of farmland have been destroyed in what humanitarian groups are saying is a worse disaster than the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

In India, capital city New Delhi is on high alert as the Yamuna river remains at dangerously high levels. Elsewhere, torrential rains have left around two million people homeless and washed away agricultural land.

GFA President K P Yohannan said many of the victims had lost all their possessions.

“Within the house, all the furniture, beds, clothes, utensils and the kids’ books—everything is completely ruined. Everything the family has, which is not much, is all gone,” he said.

GFA’s Compassion Services teams have been ministering to some of the affected families and providing them with basic necessities like food, water, clothing, shelter and medicine.

“We have churches in these areas, and some of them are suffering from the crisis, too,” he said. “But by the grace of God we also have missionaries and volunteers on the scene—even those who have suffered their own losses—who are able and willing to minister to those around them who have lost all hope.”

Mr Yohannan urged Christians to do what they could to support the relief effort.

“Sometimes it is to pray more. Sometimes the Lord shows me that this is an opportunity to demonstrate His love in a tangible way. But we will never be able to do what we should do if we are looking at ourselves.

“This is a time for people to pray and do whatever they can to relieve the suffering of people whom God loves in the name of our Lord. Now is the time to show the world what God’s love really means.”

The European Union announced today that it would double its humanitarian support for Pakistan to 150 million euros.

European humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said the increase in aid would save more lives.

She said the EU was preparing a “wide-ranging” package to help Pakistan in the long-term, which would include trade arrangements and development funding.

“The floods in Pakistan continue to present an enormous challenge,” she said. “The European Union is aware of the massive scale of the rebuilding tasks.”