BWA NEWS IN BRIEF
BANGLADESH & INDIA:
BAPTIST WORLD AID OFFERS ASSISTANCE TO CYLONE VICTIMS
Baptist World Aid (BWAid), the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), has sent grants
totaling US$12,000 for cyclone emergency relief to Bangladesh and India.
Cyclone Aila affected southern Bangladesh and eastern India on Monday, May 25, and has claimed approximately 330
lives.
“Our team visited the area and found the present need is drinking water and dry food,” said Leor Sarkar, general
secretary of the Bangladesh Baptist Fellowship. “All the water wells are under water or are mixed with saline water and
there is no source of sweet water as the salt water covered the whole area,” Sarkar reported. “We’re now distributing
drinking water and food to save their lives.” A number of persons, he said, are living on boats.
Sarkar, who is a member of the BWA Commission on Church Leadership and the Promotion and Development
Committee, informed the BWA that 27 Baptist churches “in Khulna, Bagherhat, Satkhira, Noakhali and Laxmipur districts
have been affected by this disaster.”
Bangladesh Baptist Church Sangha, through its Social Health and Education Development (SHED) Board, reported
that “wind-driven tidal surge caused by the cyclone damaged a number of flood control embankments in different districts.”
Philip Halder, Director of SHED, told the BWA that several thousand houses were washed away by seawater, and more
than 15,000 persons in eight villages have been marooned.
The US$7,000 sent by BWAid to SHED will be used to purchase food items for approximately 2,000 families in
Bagherhat, Khulna and Potuakhali districts.
Nirmal Sapui, general secretary for the Bengal Baptist Union (BBU) in India, told BWAid Director Paul Montacute
that the cyclone severely affected the Sunderban area, the world’s largest mangrove forest, along the India-Bangladesh
border.
Some 700 villages in India were affected by the cyclone, destroying 6,000 houses and damaging 8,000 more.
“Thousands and thousands of animals died,” said Sapui, who is a member of the BWA General Council and the Christian
Education Workgroup. Both agricultural and aquaculture enterprises will be affected for up to a year, he stated.
The BBU received US$5,000 from BWAid.
The same general area was affected by Cyclone Sidr in 2007, killing approximately 3,500 persons.
INDIA: 150TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION BY KARBI BAPTISTS
The Karbi Anglong Baptist Convention (KABC) in the North East Indian state of Assam celebrated the 150th
anniversary of the founding of Baptist witness in the region from March 21-22.
Approximately 5,000 worshippers attended the meetings at the Tika Baptist Church, the site of the first Christian
mission station and the first church built in Karbi Anglong, which, “in the early days, was the center of mission and
evangelism, education and literature for the people of Karbi Anglong.”
Held under the theme, “In His Footstep,” Karbi Baptists celebrated the work of early American missionaries such as Pitt
and Jessie Moore, John and Laura Carvel, and William and Elsie Hutton among the Karbi people. “A light began to dawn
in the verdant hills of Karbi Anglong when more than a hundred and fifty years ago Miles Bronson and his companion
William Ward made a historic evangelical expedition into the region,” read Daybreak in the Hills, a souvenir book
published to mark the occasion.
Worship services, a jubilee dinner, a fireworks display and dedication of plaques and other objects were among the
major highlights of the anniversary celebration. The main speaker was Dusanu Venyo, mission secretary for the Council of
Baptist Churches in North East India.
KABC was founded in 1980 when churches in Karbi Anglong formed their own convention, after previously being part
of the Assam Baptist Convention. KABC, which is divided into 12 associations, now has more than 23,000 members and
more than 280 churches.
PHOTO: Flood-affected people move to safer places after receiving relief supplies on the outskirts of Siliguri in the
eastern Indian state of West Bengal, May 26, 2009. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri/Courtesy of www.alertnet.org

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