March 1999
Looking Back
Last year we were able to help SERVE purchase a vehicle for their work with Afghan refugees, buy a Roto Tiller for S.E.E.D. in Haiti as well as support St. John’s Schools in India and send funds to Brazil and Tajikistan.
The Ongoing Crisis in Afghanistan
The spring and summer of 1998 brought a devastating earthquake to the mountain areas of Northern Afghanistan. Seventy-five villages with over 100,000 people were affected by the earthquake.
Twenty villages were completely destroyed, leaving 20,000 people to face the winter without any shelter at all. One village of more than 1,500 people was completely destroyed. A landslide covered the entire village. Three hundred students in school that morning were all buried alive!
What Has Been Done
Shelter Now International was the first organization to bring technical experts into the earthquake area. They created standardized plans for an earthquake-resistant shelter to be used in the Northern Afghanistan earthquake area.
SNI completed 494 homes this past fall in the most remote area of Afghanistan. The building program continued until water used to make the mud froze, making it impossible to continue.
Future Plans
SNI has plans to build 1,086 homes for those most vulnerable to the elements. In spite of the fighting nearby and the threat to foreigners since the bombings in Afghanistan, SNI is committed to continue with the reconstruction of homes destroyed during the earthquake of 1998.
They plan to rebuild shelters and schools that were destroyed in last year’s earthquakes. They also plan to build latrines as sanitation in these areas is almost nonexistent. As a result there is an epidemic of cholera-bubonic plague.
SNI makes every effort to keep the building costs to a minimum while maintaining a high standard of quality. The type of earthquake-resistant home they are providing is estimated to cost approximately $500.
Our lifestyle, our attitudes, our concern for the sick and the suffering, the under-privileged and the hungry, either confirm or deny the message of salvation, of wholeness, which we proclaim.
-Michael Green
The Church exists not for itself and not for its members but as a sign and agent and foretaste of the kingdom of God. It is impossible to give faithful witness to the gospel while being indifferent to the situation of the hungry, the sick, the victims of human inhumanity.
-Lesslie Newbigin
