India (MNN) — It’s been months since the tsunami hit the southern shore of India. The devastation of the powerful waves killed many people and even entire villages. Many fishermen lost not only their families, but their livelihood as fishing boats were destroyed. Today, we begin our ‘on location’ reports from tsunami-devastated Tamil Nadu State.
Mission Network News visited a village where 2,000 people were killed, and many more are still missing. Gospel for Asia’s Taun Cortado describes the scene. “Where we’re standing right now, as you look around, you see nothing but sand and palm trees, but these were once homes right where we’re standing-there were several houses here. What they would do is they would go fishing and they would drag their boats up and dry their nets here on the beach. But, as you can see there’s nothing left; it was total devastation here.”
Yesterday, Gospel for Asia began giving hope to these people by providing 15 new boats to a few of these families.
Now, because of the boats, a few have renewed hope. Pastor Peter, who’s spearheading tsunami relief work program, says this display of Christ’s love is easing persecution against Christians in that area. “Nobody (could) enter inside that area (to) preach the Gospel. They never accepted us to minister inside that area. But now, it’s not like that. They are accepting us and easily we can go through this area and minister to them.”
Pastor Peter says they have a goal of funding the distribution of a total of 500 boats. Each boat costs approximately $5,000 USD to build and equip with a motor. Your financial support will allow GFA to share Christ’s love to even more people.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about how the tsunami relief is help the church grow.
