Posted: 2/04/05
Baptist relief focuses on new homes, pure water
By John Hall
Texas Baptist Communications
Now that Texas Baptist volunteers have learned how best to meet the needs of Sri Lankans, their disaster relief efforts are pushing forward with constructing homes and cleaning water wells.
Texas Baptist Men workers have identified the ideal way to clean contaminated wells across the country and have started to implement that process, said TBM Executive Director Leo Smith. A cleaning team can service as many as 30 wells a day working alongside Sri Lankans.
To further expedite the process, TBM volunteers are training residents to clean their wells and are equipping pastors with pumps and tractors. The ministers can use those supplies as tools to improve people's lives and share the gospel.
TBM workers also are building a model frame for houses that can be duplicated across the island. The metal frame will be approved by the Sri Lankan government, and residents will be trained in how to weld them together.
Initially, residents will be able to throw tarps across the frames for temporary housing, but over time they will be able to build walls out of cinder blocks or other materials, Smith said.
Training Sri Lankans gives residents skills they can use later, Smith noted. It also provides a continuing boost to the economy as Texas Baptist Men continues buying supplies in Sri Lanka.
“I think we've just touched the surface of the opportunities available to us,” said Dick Talley, TBM logistics coordinator. “We need to stay faithful in everything we promise we are going to do.”
David Beckett, a missionary in Sri Lanka who initially contacted Texas Baptists, has been named director of Sri Lanka ministry for Children's Emergency Relief International, an arm of Baptist Child & Family Services. Beckett is in the process of registering his organization as a nongovernmental aid agency in Sri Lanka so it can begin working to establish a foster care system within the country.
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