A Nine-Month Report of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod HKBP Love Offering

COMPANIONS IN CHRIST

COMPANIONS IN CRISIS

From Pastor Bill Gafkjen, Assistant to the Bishop for Global Mission:

"The people and congregations of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod have had a significant role in helping to re-establish normalcy in the lives of earthquake and tsunami survivors in Indonesia."

Reporting from Banda Aceh, Indonesia, in October 2005, Stephen Padre of ACT (Action by Churches Together, an ecumenical disaster relief agency supported by Lutheran World Relief and the ELCA), began with a question:

"How can something as commonplace as a line of laundry drying in the sun outside a house be significant?"

He continued, answering the question:

"It's a sign that the residents of the house have resumed their daily routines, that life is taking on a sense of normalcy again. Nine months after the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami obliterated their village, many residents of Lamreh, 36 km (22.4 miles) outside Banda Aceh, have moved into newly built homes and are returning to the lives they once knew. They are ordinary people who were caught in one of the world's most extraordinary natural disasters.

And now, as the months have worn away some of the shock and trauma of the catastrophic event, they are focusing on putting their lives back in order. They are restoring and re-establishing the big and small things - residences, livelihoods, communities, cooking routines, and children's school schedules - the stuff of life lived in ordinary, expected ways." [LWR News Release, October 5, 2005]

The people and congregations of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod have had a significant role in helping to re-establish such normalcy in the lives of earthquake and tsunami survivors in Indonesia.

In addition to contributing to disaster relief for the tsunami through the ELCA and Lutheran World Relief, members of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod contributed more than $170,000.00 to the HKBP Love Offering.

Much of this love offering has already been forwarded directly to the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan church, our companion church in Indonesia, for their relief and reconstruction work among hundreds of members of their own church and many others of various religious persuasions:

$8,000.00 was wired almost immediately after the tsunami to support on-the-ground rescue, recovery, and relief work in Banda Aceh, where one HKBP congregation was all but destroyed. Food, blankets, and other supplies were purchased with this money and the funds also supported the cost of getting personnel to the area.

The Diakonia (Social Ministry) Department of the HKBP received $25,000.00 from the Love Offering in February 2005 in support of their continuing work of providing food, clothing, and other supplies in Banda Aceh, where many of their congregation's remaining 520 members were living in refugee settlements and still trying to find missing family members.

In March 2005 funds from the HKBP Love Offering allowed us to send two representatives from the Indiana-Kentucky Synod to Indonesia to express our solidarity with our sisters and brothers there, to witness first-hand the relief and recovery work of the HKBP, and to discuss future projects to be supported by the Love Offering. In June 2005, Love Offering funds made possible a visit to the I-K Synod by the Praeses (Bishop) of HKBP District V, Plasthon Simanjuntak, his wife, and a member of the District's Companionship Committee.

$15,000.00 was wired in April 2005, very soon after an earthquake stuck the islands of Nias and Sumatra Easter Monday. The island, which is estimated to be about 75% Lutheran, had previously suffered from the tsunami and this earthquake added significantly to the devastation. $10,000.00 provided relief for the island of Nias (see excerpts of a report from Plasthon Simanjuntak on the other side of this sheet). $5,000.00 supported relief work in another HKBP district devastated by the earthquake as it was recovering from the tsunami.

Another $8,500.00 from the HKBP Love Offering has fully funded the creation of a Crisis Counseling Clinic on the island of Nias. Intended as a place for those traumatized by the tsunami and earthquake to find comfort and guidance in their quest for a return to "normalcy," the clinic consists of a director, two pastoral counselors, and four volunteers from the local HKBP parish.

Remaining funds in the HKBP Love Offering are being distributed to the HKBP based on program proposals related to the continuing work of reconstruction in the earthquake and tsunami areas. These projects range from building reconstruction to equipment purchase to support of children's educational needs.

Rev. Dr. Bill Gafkjen
Assistant to the Bishop
Director of Campus Ministry, Candidacy, Global Mission, and Synod Assembly Planning

Indiana-Kentucky Synod, ELCA
911 E 86th St., Suite 200
Indianapolis, IN 46240
USA
Phone: 317-253-3522
Fax: 317-254-5666

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