Myanmar update

Food, water, clothes and shelter. Many of us don’t give a second thought to having these basics of life.

For the cyclone-hit people of Myanmar, they’ve become a preoccupation. Their survival depends on them.

In a sea of suffering left by the flood waters, Tearfund’s church-linked partners are not only saving lives but restoring and transforming them.

`The church has responded very well,’ said Tearfund’s Davidson Solanki, who has just returned from Myanmar.

`The church is working in the refugee camps, reaching out to people of different faiths and ethnic backgrounds. Most of the church workers are either pastors or leaders and they are meeting people in the camps, hearing their stories and building relationships.’

It’s difficult to imagine the anguish of families who have lost parents, grandparents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters but the following quotes give you an idea:

`Amidst the storm and rising water, I tried to pull out my father, mother and younger sister, but I couldn’t. All of them got dragged away. My life is completely ruined. Without the village and my family, life is like hell,’ said one survivor.

Sorrow

`We don’t have anything; nothing is left. It would have been better if we’d died immediately from the cyclone,’ said a father who lost his four-year-old son and five-year-old daughter.

These comments give us an inkling of the depths of sorrow facing many of the 2.4 million people affected by the cyclone: suffering that will continue to be a focus for our partners long after the initial relief operation is over.

But at the moment that relief operation has someway to go.

Thanks to your generous support, Tearfund is bringing a miracle into tens of thousands of people’s lives by giving them the physical means to survive in the face of a hostile environment.

Our Christian partners are feeding those who are hungry, treating the injured and providing shelter for the homeless.