Myanmar: Jehovah's Witnesses are the only ones showing community spirit!

by truthseeker 14 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  truthseeker

  Another attempt to make themselves out to be the ONLY ones who help people

  Dear Friends,

  
  Thank you for your encouraging words and your prayers. Internet is down so we have not been able to read any of your emails until just now. We arrived in Bangkok this morning on a relief related matter, and will go back to Yangon tomorrow morning. Since we don’t have a lot of time we will send this email to all of you.

  After the cyclone hit we found ourselves trapped in the branch. Yangon used to be (!) a city full of big old trees, so as they fell across the roads and interlocked they formed high walls. All of us started hacking and sawing our way out right after the storm had subsided.

  We started on Saturday afternoon and finished on Sunday afternoon. We got many good reports from neighbors and bystanders who said:

  Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only ones showing community spirit!

  Who did this, has the army already cleared this up? – No, it is only Jehovah’s Witnesses!

  Because no one, not even the branch, was prepared for a cyclone of this magnitude, we were short on all kinds of supplies. Food, gas and petrol, but most importantly diesel. Without diesel we can not run the generator to operate the branch, neither can we purify water for drinking. So as soon as the brothers were able to get out they bought diesel. Shortly we were able to send out drinking water as well as bags of rice to the congregations.

  A team has also been sent to Irrawaddy Division to assess the situation. Two relief committees have been formed, one for the Yangon area and one for the Irrawaddy area. The destruction is immense. So many of our brothers houses have been destroyed. There is so much work to be done! So far we have not received any reports of brothers being hurt, missing or dead and we thank Jehovah for this.

  The only thing that happened to us was that our rooftop blew off and our ceiling collapsed by the weight of the water. For now we stay in a room downstairs. We have hot nights with no power, but we fall fast asleep after all the relief work. We are so happy to have somewhere to stay. In our congregation out in Thanlyin Village the brothers live in 10 houses. 2 of them have no roof and 2 are completely destroyed. The picture below shows what is left of a sister’s house. Where the house used to be there is only a bed and a cabinet.

  Some lost all they had, but they show complete trust in Jehovah. The cyclone hit on Saturday early morning, and the following week, in the middle of all the chaos, we have had our circuit week! The brothers had a million reasons not to come to the meetings, but all of them came.
  Brothers everywhere in the stricken areas show love and help others. What a difference from their worldly neighbors who take advantage of the situation, steal, cheat and are selfish!

  The army was slow to react to the crisis, but it is good to see that once they started, they cleared up the roads quickly and are now working on restoring electricity.

  We will have to stop here, but we will update you again as soon as we get internet back. Please continue to pray for the brothers here. It is helping!
• 

  nvrgnbk

  It's absolutely heartwarming.

  If only I were worthy, I'd still be part of the brotherhood.

  Please continue to pray for the brothers here.

  Yeah.

  And screw those "worldly neighbors who take advantage of the situation, steal, cheat and are selfish!"

  Let Jehovah be praised!
• 

  truthseeker

  Followup to previous post:

  The following is the experience of Brother Saw Lweh Sey from Bothingone congregation, Irrawaddy Division. I met him when he came to bethel and asked him to tell me his experience. He traveled for 2 days on a government relief boat to come to the branch to ask for help. By the time he arrived here, the brothers had already reached his village to assess the situation and give help:

  “The storm started on Friday, May 2 nd at about 4pm. Around 6pm the area had start to flood so the brothers came to the Kingdom Hall to take refuge. The water rose to about 7 feet high. We climbed in to the space above the ceiling and under the roof. The older ones could not climb up so we had to lift them. We tried to open a part of the roof so we could get some air, but the winds and the rains were too strong. After a while the whole Zink roof of 18 feet blew away so we had no protection from the rain. We were worried about if the ceiling could hold us, so we sat on the beams. I think we were about 100 people on the ceiling; 20 brothers and other neighbors. We sat there the whole night, about 12 hours. The Kingdom Hall fence blew away, and also the toilets blew away very far. All the houses in the village were gone or destroyed.

  We have some rice left in the village that all share. We eat sun-byouq (watery rice-soup) and coconuts. We have no salt. Everything is gone. But the brothers and sisters are not as worried as the others. They are thinking that Jehovah’s day is close. They trust Jehovah and his organization. We will obey any directions on if we should stay in the village or go somewhere else.

  All the water is salty because of the flood. All the fields are gone. Still people are coming from surrounding villages because our village is a little bit higher up then the others. The rice is all wet. We have enough to eat sun-byouq for about 2 months, after that we have no hope. Most of the animals died. Cows, pigs and chickens. All trees are gone, it looks like a plain. I think about 300 people died in our village, but all brothers and sisters are alright. The population in our village used to be around 1000. But it is even worse in the other 5 villages surrounding us. In those villages there are only about 1/3 of the people left. The rest have died. There are no brothers in those villages. “

  As this brother was going back to his village, the Bethelites brought out clothes and supplies for him to take along. But the brother said; “I won’t take these things. Instead I would like to bring these books...” and he took out a long list of literature; books and Bibles. “This is more important.”
• 

  truthseeker

  Just who is helping the victims of the cyclone?

  http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/07/asia/cyclone.php

  (condensed to include main points)

  Aid agencies scramble to help cyclone victims in Myanmar

  YANGON, Myanmar: UN officials declared the Myanmar delta area that has been hit hardest by a devastating cyclone to be "a major, major disaster" on Wednesday, with corpses floating through flooded waters and enormous logistical challenges hampering humanitarian aid efforts.

  International aid began trickling into the country, but much of the Irrawaddy Delta, where most of the cyclone's estimated 22,000 or more victims died, remains cut off from the world.

  "Basically, the entire lower delta region is under water," said Richard Horsey, a spokesman in Bangkok for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid. He predicted the casualty figure could rise "dramatically" beyond the latest figure given Tuesday by Myanmar officials.

  In Geneva, the United Nations said Myanmar had agreed to allow an airplane to bring UN aid supplies to cyclone victims. But permission was still pending Wednesday for a UN coordination team to accompany the flight.

  A UN spokeswoman, Elisabeth Byrs, said UN staff in Bangkok were awaiting visas so they could go to Myanmar and assess the damage.

  Aid workers were able to start distributing essential relief supplies Wednesday, including water purification tablets, mosquito nets, plastic sheeting and basic medical supplies. But heavily flooded areas are accessible only by boat, Horsey said.

  "Teams are talking about bodies floating around in the water," he said. "It's a huge, huge problem just to get these goods out."

  This is "a major, major disaster we're dealing with," Horsey said.

  With as many as one million people left homeless, the international community has been struggling to deliver aid in the Myanmar, the former Burma, which normally seeks to shut out foreign officials and restricts their access inside the country.

  On Wednesday, state television quoted a Yangon official, General Tha Aye, as reassuring people that the situation was "returning to normal" in certain areas of Karen State that had been hit by the cyclone. He was shown thanking volunteers and visiting the village of Naungbo, outside Yangon, where locals were cutting apart downed trees and brush to clear the roads.

  But in Yangon, the former Rangoon, which is Myanmar's biggest city, cyclone victims faced new challenges as markets doubled the price of rice, charcoal and bottled water. Electricity was restored to a small portion of the city's 6.5 million residents, but most, who rely on electric wells, had no water.

  Buddhist monks and Roman Catholic nuns wielding knives and axes joined Yangon residents Tuesday in clearing roads of fallen trees that were once the city's pride. Soldiers were out on the streets in large numbers for the first time since the cyclone hit.

  http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/myanmar_43887.html

  A monastery provides shelter for villagers after the cyclone in Myanmar

  © UNICEF Myanmar/2008

  The Sasana Beikman monastery has been serving as a shelter for some 500 cyclone victims from Kyauktan in Myanmar.

  KYAUKTAN, Myanmar, 9 May 2008 – One week ago, Cyclone Nargis blasted the southern coastal area of Myanmar at 190 kph – one of the worst natural disasters the country has experienced. Kyauktan in the Bhamo Township was one of the hardest-hit areas.

  Villagers there held on in their houses until the buildings collapsed, while some families clung to plastic containers to keep from drowning. On Saturday, as night approached and the floodwaters rose, hundreds of villagers sought refuge in the Sasana Beikman monastery.

  One young resident of Kyauktan, Ma Khine, 13, was among some 500 people who huddled in the monastery along as the cyclone destroyed their homes.

  “I was worried that my family members would be separated,” said Ma. “Our faces turned blue from the cold and I thought we were going to die.”

  Economic conditions were already strained in the Irrawaddy Delta village where Ma’s simple family home used to stand. Before this, she barely earned $20 a month working in a garment factory. Her tough life has been made worse by the recent disaster.

  Food and safe water needed

  In the monastery, young children sit in their mothers’ arms with shocked expressions seemingly frozen on their faces. They don’t want to return to their village, but their parents want to start picking up the pieces of their shattered world.

  According to a UNICEF team assessing the situation in Kyauktan, food is scarce among the 66 shelters in the area. Many villagers who still have houses standing have been helping out by cooking and donating what they can.

  In low-lying Irrawaddy, which bore the brunt of the storm, there are grave concerns that the children who survived Cyclone Nargis now have no safe drinking water and are at risk for diarrhoeal and water-bourne diseases.

  “Please help us to rebuild our village,” said one mother. “We are facing difficulty for our daily survival as our houses are now lying flat in the water, some crushed by trees. We do not even have cooking utensils or clothes to wear.”
• 

  Tired of the Hypocrisy

  Self promoting, lying booshit from brain-dead/brain-washed/ [removed] lemmings.
• 

  nelly136

  As this brother was going back to his village, the Bethelites brought out clothes and supplies for him to take along. But the brother said; “I won’t take these things. Instead I would like to bring these books...” and he took out a long list of literature; books and Bibles. “This is more important.”

  sick!
• 

  Bonnie_Clyde

  As this brother was going back to his village, the Bethelites brought out clothes and supplies for him to take along. But the brother said; “I won’t take these things. Instead I would like to bring these books...” and he took out a long list of literature; books and Bibles. “This is more important.”

  He just has to get his field service hours in.
• 

  keyser soze

  As this brother was going back to his village, the Bethelites brought out clothes and supplies for him to take along. But the brother said; “I won’t take these things. Instead I would like to bring these books...” and he took out a long list of literature; books and Bibles. “This is more important.”

  I can just see the victims now: " I want to learn more about a god who would allow such devastation. Please show me properly how to serve such a wonderful being."
• 

  Tara

  Excuse me while I barf at the unbelievable arrogance.
• 

  Honesty

  As this brother was going back to his village, the Bethelites brought out clothes and supplies for him to take along. But the brother said; “I won’t take these things. Instead I would like to bring these books...” and he took out a long list of literature; books and Bibles. “This is more important.”

  "I'm taking these to share with the people in my village because they all want to serve our Great god the Faithful Slave Jehover."