Relief efforts continue following Nepali mudslides

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (BP) — The situation in Nepal is much more dire than news reports indicate, says the (unnamed for security reasons) pastor of an unnamed Christian church in Kathmandu and leader of a Nepali network of more than five hundred churches across Nepal.

“Eyewitnesses tell us that more than 25 to 30 thousand people died but the government has only reported 12,500,” the Nepali pastor on Sept. 5 texted Marc Maurer, pastor of Journey Church in Grand Junction, Colo. “We are not told how many people really are missing. Flash floods are worse than what we have been told in the news.

“What is being reported is what is easily accessible,” the Nepali pastor continued. “The damage is more far-reaching than that.” 

Reports from partners on the ground working with Southern Baptists’ global humanitarian and community ministry Send Relief underscored the severity of the situation, with aid efforts complicated by worsening road conditions and monsoon rains.

Maurer has been serving in short-term missions in Nepal since 2011. He leads pastoral training sessions over a two-week period each fall throughout Nepal at numerous sites.

He is familiar with the terrain left devastated when a slab of ice 49 acres in size (equal to 37 American football fields) broke off a glacier in the Himalayans Aug. 26.

A cascading wall of melted ice, pulverized rock and mud fell 10,000 feet in 50 minutes through narrow mountain gorges on its way down to the plains. The sludge that reached as high as 250 feet on the sides of the gorges swallowed homes, villages and towns of four to six story buildings that had clung to either side of the Bhotekoshi river system, which meanders along the Nepal/China border. 

Various news media, including the onsite reporting of India Today, told of 41 bridges and a dozen hydro plants severely damaged or destroyed, 25 miles of road obliterated, and 20 schools gone in an area of about 93,000 people.

“More than 20 pastors and 200 Christian families are missing,” the Nepali pastor texted Maurer on Aug. 28. 

Maurer previously told Baptist Press he personally knew one pastor who is working with a network of other pastors in the region.

“What’s amazing to see,” Maurer said, “is that as these pastors meet physical needs with the help of donations from partner churches in America, they share the Gospel and people who have lost everything get the hope they need to start over, this time with Jesus at their side.” 

Maurer knows devastation. He was by God’s providence onsite in 2015 when a 7.8 earthquake in central Nepal resulted in nearly 9,000 deaths and massive destruction. Maurer and his team of five Colorado pastors were on a short-term mission to train network leaders when the earthquake hit.  

Restricted travel left them stranded in Kathmandu, where they pivoted and ministered to those displaced by the quake, handing out hundreds of New Testaments written in the Nepali language, praying with the displaced victims, and sharing the gospel message. 

“We saw several come to Christ,” Maurer said. The Colorado pastor’s background as an architect became useful as he worked with Southern Baptists, providing building inspections for the housing of displaced international and local ministry partners.  

“Southern Baptists distributed tons of supplies and hundreds of people came to know the Lord,” Maurer said as a result of Western Colorado churches in 2015 raising much-needed relief funds. “The funds from Western Colorado helped to purchase tarps for temporary shelters, potable water, and food supplies. Partnering with Nepali Network pastors and local government officials, the distribution of these supplies was safeguarded and met the needs of more than 2,000 people in some of the hardest-hit areas.  

“Prayer, Bible distribution, and the faithful presentation of the Gospel message by these network pastors and their churches resulted in multitudes of professions of faith, baptisms, and the planting of numerous new churches,” Maurer added.

The difference between the 2015 earthquake and the Aug. 26 glacier-fall is the difference between rubble and mud the texture of wet concrete, he said.

“This time flooding left mounds of sand and mud and debris in and around peoples’ homes,” Maurer said. “Downstream towns, including Galchhi, were flooded in mud up to six feet. For the survivors of that, there’s the difficulty of finding food and especially water. Flooding always destroys wells and other potable water sources.”

The southern half of Nepal, called the Terai Region, is wide river valleys and plains, where a wide range of crops grow. “Certain areas will grow rice, others, beans, and in a lot of these places, crops are grown for a regional distribution,” Maurer said. “So, if crops are destroyed, they affect a vast number of people.”

Southern Baptist Send Relief has been onsite in Nepal since Aug. 27 working with local partners in Nepal to distribute emergency supplies and aid within 24 hours of the disaster, including food staples, first aid and hygiene kits, water filters and purification tablets, cookware, blankets, tarps and tents, mosquito nets and solar lights.

“Send Relief works through local partners and believers who are already in these communities to assess what each village needs,” said a Send Relief leader of a Disaster Assistance Response Team, whose identity was withheld due to security concerns. “We help them identify the full range of needs in their communities —  clean water, sanitation, food, shelter, healthcare, and the emotional weight families are carrying — and then equip them to meet those needs.

“Our prayer is that as we serve alongside these communities, everyone will have the opportunity to hear the hope of the Gospel.”

Since Send Relief’s Nepal flood response began, the organization has distributed aid through partners and believers on the ground to more than 3,000 survivors of the disaster.

“The churches we work with are already there and will still be there long after the water is gone,” said Jason Cox, Send Relief’s vice president for international ministry.

“Families in Nepal are still waiting for answers,” he said. “Please pray for families grieving the loss of loved ones, for those searching while waiting for word, for families who lost their homes, for rescue workers moving through dangerous conditions, and for the churches and believers in Nepal serving their neighbors, that they would bring real comfort to their friends and neighbors as they share the hope of Jesus.”

Donations can be made online at SendRelief.org.

Send Relief shared video of a pastor in Nepal thanking the organization and its supporters for the much-needed aid.

“Our efforts during the 2015 earthquake helped me to see firsthand how Southern Baptists managed relief funding at scale, where the funds given were the funds distributed in the field, in the hardest-hit locations,” Maurer said. “This year our spearhead efforts will work through Send Relief with similar anticipated results for the victims of this natural disaster.”