International (MNN) — Trans World Radio has renewed a partnership with Biblica to provide emotional and spiritual disaster relief.
Tom Watkins of TWR explains When Your Whole World Changes, one of the primary programs on which they partner with Biblica. It’s a 30-day devotional designed to help people who have suffered natural disasters. “Wars, pandemics, tsunamis, hunger, tidal waves, you name it. Anything that really devastates people’s lives. They’re searching for answers, saying, ‘This is what my life used to be. And this is what it is now.’ And they have an openness to spiritual content at that particular point of their lives.”
TWR used this program to respond to disasters like the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
The USNS Comfort arrives in Manhatten on March 30, during a severe COVID-19 outbreak. The virus has killed at least 1.5 million globally. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Watkins says these disasters often spawn a whirlwind of relief aid to affected areas. But support doesn’t last. “Quite often, a few months pass, and things stabilize a little bit. Then [relief groups] are called off to another country. But people are still left with the long-term fallout of what happened: PTSD, being displaced, losing everything they have, and that any kind of security in life. They’ve lost loved ones. So how do they cope with this long term?”
Dealing with pandemics
TWR has been working with When Your Whole World Changes for over 15 years, taking the devotional booklets and broadcasting them in a number of different languages around the world.
But now, Biblica has revised the program to more effectively deal with pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic has killed at least 1.5 million around the world and crushed global economies. However, it won’t be the last pandemic, and the creators of the program want to prepare for future plagues.
Watkins says pandemics offer a unique challenge as a natural disaster: information literacy. “TWR, particularly in places like Africa for instance, is a very, very important source of credible information that people turn to in times of need.”
Watkins says TWR has created a lot of unique COVID-19 programs as well. Pray this programming will provide help and good information to many people in the months ahead. And pray the love and hope of Jesus will reach many disaster victims through this renewed partnership with Biblica.
Header image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay.
