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Please Do Not Forget Posted on 08/30/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (7)

I know my friends there has been a long break in my writing. I have no words. I do have a lot to share, but when I sit to type I am overwhelmed. My land has been drowned! People's records, documents, memories, crops, livelihood, factories everything that came in the way of the water is gone! Mile after mile more than one fifth of my country has been devastated, people who lived for 30 years on a dry river bed have been washed away toward the Indian ocean! When friends saw the water was rushing toward their home they ran. They took refuge in a camp where they were the few Christians. They went back the next day to find their home still standing but filled with clay and mud and everything inside embedded in the clay - all the way to the ceiling! They keep sneaking back, looking at their home and then going back to the camp. They have nothing in the camp but the house is in a worse condition. Where will they go? What will they do? Where will they start? Christians in camps are being sidelined. Every sign along the road is for a Ramadhan offereing for 'Our Muslim Brothers and Sisters'. There are thousands of Christian families affected and devastated. Will anyone speak for them? They will be sidelined from much of the funding and many will die from despair and will give into depression. The weakness and vulnerability of the people will make then susceptible even to disease, illness and then suicidal thoughts. This is already happening. Please pray for pastors and workers in these areas. The crisis is great. A great calamity has hit this land but the Church is being affected bitterly. Christians who have lost everything had very little to lose in the first place, but what they had was crucial in terms of documentation, baptismal certificates, house ownership papers. For years they have been under pressure to leave these towns. Now the water has washed away their rights and their extremist neighbours will try to take advantage of every opportunity to prove they did not own those homes and lots and that they do not belong in those areas. Please pray they can be reached with the message of God's love and hope and be reminded that they are not forgotten. Being forgotten is one of the worst things we can feel at this time.

Flood Ridden Pakistan - Please Pray! Posted on 08/24/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (9)

My people are aching. From beneath the swirling, rushing waters, the memories of my people speak to them. So many of our stories have been left half finished, so many plans left incomplete, so many dreams and hopes are lying at the bottom of flood ridden villages and towns. Where the children are alive and untouched by disease, the dowries and homes have been washed away. Some places people have come home to their homes, but infected with water and airborn diseases. Where the dowry has not been destroyed by dampness the future bride may die of Cholera. I am not exaggerating anything. It will take 30 years to recover from this crisis. But will that bring back the baptism certificates which legitimise the faith of hundreds of Christians? Will it bring back the discipleship materials circulating among underground churches? Please pray for us. Every day we hear of more deaths. There are snakes every where because they have been washed up in the flood and are now a risk to us all. People are dying of poisoning because homeless people, cooking out in the open have nothing to cover and protect their food with. The high suicide count is particularly worrying. Hopelessness skims the flood water like an annoying crow that squawks at you when you want silence. Pray we will find quietness and confidence and strength.

Emmanuel - God is with us. Posted on 08/15/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (4)

Dear Friends, yet another Sunday is fading away. Our land is engulfed not only in raging waters but in sadness and pain, unrest, confusion and sadness. I hear men and women repeat over and again 'Allah knows best' 'All that Allah does is Good' 'Allah keep us from harm' 'so be Allah's will'. But I wonder how many questions pass through their minds in the day that are uncertain and questioning. Thoughts and wonderings about why Allah allowed the flood, about whether Allah punished us as a Nation for something, whether Pakistan is at the beginning of the end and whether there is any future for our land. I see the worry lines etched in the face of the corn vender at the side of the road, I see the cyclist at the traffic lights look almost numb. Anything could happen. We have had so many sadness in our land, from bombs and war to earthquakes and floods. In the heart of Maaria's across my land the question comes up again and again 'What next?'. The question comes up 'Jesus have you turned your face away?'. Musa, the person who drives mum and myself to work and college, was driving me back from college when we were talking about this pertubring question. I said to him 'Musa Bhai (bhai means brother), sometimes I feel maybe there is so much evil and blackness in this land that Jesus is looking away'. He is a simple man with a simple faith. He wife Mujeeda and he had discussed it at breakfast in the morning. 'Bhain (sister), if Jesus had turned his face away hsi tears would not have fallen and flooded our land and if He does turn his face away it is to turn His ear toward our prayers'. I was a little stunned at Musa's reply. It was a unique way of looking at it. I could not see how Jesus would allow his tears to flood and then drown and destroy so much but I could see how Musa was looking at this. But what he and mujeeda had decided about the Lord's ears and listening to our prayer- that was powerful. If he is aching over the wounds we are inflicting on our nation He will never stop listening to our prayers. Behind all the self righteousness and also fear in those 'Allah willing' and 'Allah is good' and 'All allah does is right' statements, were uncertainties and fears and questions and searchings. Those JEsus could see and hear and those He will respond to. Jesus - Emmanuel He is with us.

When waters begin to stagnate Posted on 08/13/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (3)

The images of swirling water and people clutching bits of their roofs had gripped the world. For a while every one watches and shows care and concern for thsoe who are suffering. We had the Tsunami, then the earthquake in Kashmir, Hurrican Katrina, Haiti and now this. Forgive me for missing out on some others. But typically the news and reporters with their cameras storm the area, get pictures, raise awareness and leave for the next disaster or big story. Please do not forget that those swirling waters in Pakistan's flood affected region will now stagnate. That death toll of 12oo+ will rise, people will get disease and be undernourished because our crop was destroyed and many will sink deeper into the despair which already filled them. Pakistan is a land in moruning. We seem to mourn all the time. If not the war then the loss of colour in our people's lives, if not that then an act of terror, or then some other natural calamity or act of persecution toward a minority Christian, if not that then the rape of innocent women or the forbidden love of two young peopel and the forced marriages of people who do not love each other. This land of mourning needs you to be involved. Although the water looks dirty and I do not promise it gets cleaner as it stands. It gets worse but I ask that you will pull up wade into these waters in prayer and in any way that the Lord leads you. Pray for the vulnerable Christian population in these places. Pray for those housed in mosques, pray for those who are alone and have lost their families. Pray that God would reach out and minister through us who are still here and able. Pray that God will build a people of power and will move through this land by His spirit and that people of power will glorfy the precious name of Jesus in these times.

Floods and Martyrs Posted on 08/08/2010 12:00 AM   |  EMail to Friend   |  View Comments (4)

I have spent many hours making parcels for a team of people from Church to take to the North. Our youth group has sent parcels of dhal (lentils), rice, sugar, tea and dried milk. The floods in the North of Paksitanhave been yet another tragedy to hit the people of the Swat and Northern regions where only recently the Taliban have been gaining strength and there has been a major military offensive. Some think this is punishment from Allah for fighting the taliban. Dadi asked if the detsruction and deparvity of the Taliban is so great that God has taken his hand off those parts of the land. Then I look at Sharifaan and see the grief etched on her face from misery of the collapsed wall of her house. Would God remove his hand from her, his faithful daughter who has clung to Him faithfully. No I do not think so. But the Taliban- have they finally caused God to turn His face away and are Sharifaan and countless other homeless, roofless people, being unjustly punished. No- my God is not an unjust God. God will yet bring beauty from ashes. For his children He will always make a way in the destruction. A way to live and know HIs justice and dignity. But in the midst of destruction, will His children rise to show His love to those who believe so differently. Those who have refused to love and act with grace toward their fellow neighbours and have sown hatred among innocent children and put the millstone of unbelief around their necks. These are hard days for my people. With so many killed, so much suffering and as I talk of beauty from Ashes, I see a new smoke arise. More ashes. More sadness as brothers and sisters are killed in Afghanistan. More sadness as the news of Christian doctors in Afghanistan being killed for faith breaks. So Lord, show me some beauty that I may share it with my brothers and sisters. And Lord lay it on my brothers and sisters' hearts that in the midst of these ashes we may stand and be refined. The fire will turn all else to ashes, but we are diamonds, made in His image and we cannot perish by this fire. May we be refined.