ARMENIA, Colombia (BP)–In the aftermath of an earthquake that shook the Armenia area of Colombia in January, Colombian Baptists are mobilizing to meet physical and spiritual needs of thousands of quake victims.
Local Baptists have trucked food, water, plastic and hygiene supplies into the city with help from the International Mission Board’s hunger and disaster relief funds, reported Southern Baptist missionary Sharon Coleman.
And as Baptist workers have ministered to human needs, earthquake victims have responded by professing faith in Christ and joining new Bible studies and churches.
The IMB sent about $50,000 to help with relief efforts. International aid that flooded into the city after the Jan. 25 earthquake was quickly exhausted. The earthquake killed at least 940 people and injured 3,690 across Colombia’s western coffee-growing region.
Cleanup teams, which include Baptist seminary students, travel weekly from Cali to Armenia to help tear down damaged buildings.
“The students share their faith with non-believers, lead worship services in the churches and missions, do crisis counseling in the tent cities and helped start another new church in Armenia,” Coleman said. “New ministry and witness are presently being maintained with about 1,500 people each week.”
She and her husband, Rodney, have served as church planters in Cali since 1990.
Missionaries Jamie Ruede and Peggy Wallace headed up a ministry to injured children in Bogota hospitals, many of whom were orphaned or lost family members in the earthquake.
Even though the children’s plight was highlighted in local newspaper and television news, two Bogota hospital staff members said no one else had offered to help, reported missionary Karl Wallace.
The women purchased a sweat suit, personal hygiene kit and toy for each of the 19 children, some of whom were in critical condition, as well as gifts for two mothers.
“While visiting [another clinic], they were able to ask each patient what they wanted. Their responses were tender, touching and humbling for Jamie and Peggy,” Wallace recounted. “One wanted a pillow. One wanted something to tie her hair back with. None asked for toys. They wanted the simple things of life that had been taken away from them by the tragedy of the earthquake.”
When the Colemans visited one of the children at home after her release, eight members of her family prayed to receive Christ.
Armenian Baptists’ next task is to rebuild several damaged churches, missions and parsonages that were damaged in the earthquake.
Armenia’s Central Baptist Church has been holding services for two months in a tent on a borrowed lot while the congregation waits for funds and government permission to rebuild. Twenty-four people have made decisions for Christ and a lay pastor has been called into ministry, and the church expects to leave behind a new congregation when its own facility is rebuilt.
