ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (BP)–About 600 families in Pakistan’s Sindh province are receiving desperately needed food supplies, thanks to the generosity of Christians who have donated to the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund.
Bags of staple foods are being assembled by teams of disaster relief volunteers trained by Baptist Global Response, an international relief and development organization, with a total of $12,500 from the World Hunger Fund, said Francis Horton, who with his wife Angie directs BGR work in south Asia. For $25 per family, a food bag contains 44 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of rice, along with oil, lentils, spices, sugar, tea and soap.
“People in the flood zone are desperately looking for food,” Horton said. “This will help survivors by literally saving their lives so we can look toward helping them rebuild their homes and replant their crops.”
More than 17 million people have been driven from their homes, and the Indus River is not expected to reach peak flood stage for several more days, Pakistan’s chief meteorologist told reporters Aug. 24. Millions of people have lost homes, possessions, crops and livestock, and the United Nations has estimated up to 3.5 million children are at high risk of deadly water-borne diseases.
Horton provided Baptist Press an on-the-scene video of a relief team packing the food bags. Go to http://www.bpnews.net/mediaplayer.asp?Id=69 to watch the video.
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Compiled by Baptist Press assistant editor Mark Kelly.
