If you follow news from Southern Asia, you may recall that nearly two years ago, on April 25, 2015, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake occurred in Nepal. The effects, as you can imagine, were devastating: more than 9,000 people died, hundreds of thousands were displaced from their homes, and the earthquake even triggered two major avalanches, one on Mt. Everest.
But like I said, this happened nearly two years ago. So what does that have to do with current events? Well, as anyone whose home has been hit by a natural disaster could tell you, cleanup and recovery efforts after such a major event can be time-consuming. Just think about all the time it’s taken communities to recover from Hurricane Katrina or the Joplin tornado. Now imagine those cleanup efforts on a wider scale, in a more densely populated area, and in a nation with fewer resources. Things won’t be the same again for a long time.
What is current news is how the Nepali government is responding. Just a few days ago, the government bulldozed a refugee camp in the capital city to try to encourage people to leave the city and return to their homes. The problem is, they still don’t have homes to return to. Eurasia missionaries in Nepal are responding to this crisis by helping to rebuild homes an churches that were destroyed by the earthquake.
Would you be praying with us that God would bless them in their work and open doors for them to share the gospel as they offer their help to those who need it?
Here are some other things happening in Southern Asia this month:
A simple water pump and latrine are literally changing the lives of women who pick tea in Nepal. This one definitely puts some faces to the clean water efforts many are making all over the world.
The Maldives tops the list of most Instagram-worthy travel spots. Yet another reason to sign up for our next internship!
Not all the post-earthquake news in Nepal is bad. One man used the destruction of his brick kiln as an opportunity to rebuild a cleaner, more energy-efficient facility.
Saudi Arabia is trying to secure land in the Maldives that is rich in oil and would protect and preserve their trade routes.
And lastly, a new bill in Bangladesh has some loopholes that some say could be exploited to force children into marriage.
We hope these articles will give you a little better idea what life like in this area of Eurasia, and how you can be praying for those who are taking the gospel to these places. Happy reading, and as always, thanks for being part of Eurasia Community! We couldn’t do this without YOU.