Story number 2 for 29 Jul 2003

(India)–Meanwhile, mission agencies in India are taking the lead in helping the fight against what health officials believe to be Japanese encephalitis. Mission India’s Dave DeGroot is in the state of Andhre Pradesh. “The death toll officially is approaching 200. Children, in particular, are dying from the mosquito borne disease. The government agencies are releasing information saying that this thing is possibly menacing proportions and they’re going to among other things to Mission partners to help distribute drugs.” DeGroot says Mission India is also helping. He says this is ground-work for evangelism. “This place is so remote, where I’m calling from, that mission work is just establishing ‘toe-holds’ in this area and this helps…this helps a lot. The people trust them, where they don’t trust other big agencies that come in, but these mission agencies have a reputation of truly caring for people and this is just a prime example of how they do that.”