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Flooding in Brazil Prompts $1M Recovery Program
The worst flooding to strike northeast Brazil in 25 years has killed dozens of people, displaced more than 150,000 people, and damaged and destroyed thousands of homes.
World Vision relief operations have been underway since the height of the flooding earlier this month, which saw water levels exceeding 12 feet above street level in places.
World Vision, whose Brazilian operational headquarters is in the heart of the
disaster zone, is providing assistance to 10,000 of the worst-affected families.
Phase One. In the first phase of a $1 million relief-and-recovery program, World Vision is providing blankets, mattresses, water filters, medicines, water purification tablets, clothing, and food baskets. Each food basket contains rice,beans, vegetable oil, milk powder, cassava flour, corn flour, sugar, coffee, spaghetti, sardines, and dried meat. World Vision expects to conclude this first phase of assistance to the most severely affected by the end of August.
Phase Two. The next phase of emergency response will focus on home repairs and reconstruction for houses damaged by flooding and mudslides.
World Vision plans to repair 650 houses within its Brazilian Area Development Programs. Repair costs will range from $190 to $390 per house.
World Vision will help build new homes for 160 families formerly living in flood-prone areas. The homes, each built on government-provided land, will have two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, and a service area. The local government is also covering part of the construction costs and is lending construction experts to assist in over-sight of the work.
World Vision expects to continue the repair and reconstruction through 2001, and is currently exploring combined efforts with the local government and Habitat for Humanity for long-term solutions for houses in high-risk areas.
Please remember to pray for these families from some of the poorest regions of Brazil who have lost the little they had.
WV Organizes Conference for Christian Unity
Early this summer, World Vision held an all-church conference in Romania to encourage forgiveness, healing, and love among churches and Romanian society. Attended by 1,200 clergy, lay people, students, and workers, the conference provided a setting for an outpouring of a spirit of unity and healing for Romanian Christians.
Virtually every Christian denomination in Romania was represented at the conference: Romanian Orthodox, Baptist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Reformed, Church of the Brethren, Seventh-Day Adventist, and others. They met in a huge chandeliered conference room in the Palace of the People, the second largest building in the world (only the U.S. Pentagon building is bigger).
The theme verse for the conference was II Chronicles 7:14, "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."
The conference participants earnestly sought forgiveness and healing for their country. With tears, many pleaded for forgiveness for the country's 100,000 abandoned and institutionalized children and for the millions of children aborted since the 1989 revolution.
The Rev. Vasile Mihoc, a speaker at the conference and leader of a reform movement in Romania, proclaimed, "Our country is perishing not because we didn't enter NATO or the European Union or because we didn't receive enough World Bank credits. Romania is perishing because of sin. As in communist times, we are still full of lies." Later he added, "God will do through us what we cannot do."
Under the inspired leadership of Romanian national director Chris Shore, World Vision focused the conference on repentance for the country's sins and avoiding divisive doctrinal issues. World Vision served as the glue that held the churches together and the leaven that allowed them to rise to God's call.
There is perhaps no greater service in the cause of Christian unity.
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