The Rohingya people are a stateless minority from Myanmar who fled ethnic violence. Many of them ended up in Bangladesh. While the repatriation process was postponed, most have no desire to return to Myanmar.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

The Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh is now the largest in the world with over one million people. But it is not in a great spot.

Gary Edmonds with Food for the Hungry explains, “They have…created these what are called ‘spontaneous settlements’. In other words, they find some open land [and] they find some places where they try to create a little bit of shelter, get some food, water, [and] sanitation conditions. But it so happens that where they have settled is also in a highly vulnerable floodplain.”

The monsoon rain in the refugee camp brings the dangers of collapsing buildings and tents, floods, landslides, and waterborne diseases. Bangladesh’s monsoon season typically lasts from June to October. The first weekend of monsoon season in early June saw 15 inches of rain and winds roaring in at 43 miles per hour.

“With the rains as well as these very, very concentrated living environments, you’ve got a situation where malaria, cholera, diphtheria — waterborne illnesses — are likely to be spread, and spread rapidly.”

Food for the Hungry is trying to get ahead of the problem in the Rohingya refugee camp, along with fellow ministry partners.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“We have been a part with Medical Teams International of building health clinics…and then educating the people and training healthcare workers to allow them to navigate this kind of a season. [The problem is] you just can’t get to the health clinics right now. Roads are literally washed out. There is no way of transport.”

Part of the solution is to train local Rohingya people in disease prevention and sanitation so they can teach others in the camps. Footbridges will also hopefully be built over flooded roads and gullies so people can still get across.

Tangible aid is also still needed. “We try to equip them as best we can with boots and rain slickers and garments and so forth…. The second side of it is to get clean water and to get food to these people. That’s what Food for the Hungry is working at as well right now.”

As Edmonds puts it, “A hard place has simply just become harder for us to work and operate in. But nevertheless, it doesn’t inhibit us in a sense and it doesn’t create a situation where we’re simply just trying to wait it out.”

As believers, there are multiple things we can do to respond to the Rohingya crisis. But one thing we can’t do as a Church is nothing.

Zohrab is one of thousands of Rohingya mothers who fled Bangladesh and barely survived with her baby, Noor. (Photo, caption courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

“This is the kind of thing that breaks God’s heart as a father who has created these people in His image. Therefore, might it break our heart in such a way that it will lead us to respond, and respond appropriately [at] this time in history. I think this is one of the crucial ways that we can be witnesses to the love and the grace of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ.”

Edmonds suggests, “First of all, search, go on the web, get yourself educated. Many, many people are not educated about the Rohingya people and the crisis and all that is happening. This is viewed as likely one of the biggest humanitarian emergencies of history — more than one million people who are stateless people.”

Additionally, Father’s Day was earlier this week. With this focus recently on our minds, Edmonds says we can pray that the Rohingya people would come to know their Heavenly Father.

“God the Father has actually fashioned, created these people. They are handmade people by the Father of Heaven. He loves them,…He knows them by name, He knows their gifts and their skills and their abilities. So pray that God would intervene.

“Then lastly, if you are inclined, if you are looking at this, we would love for people to give. This is one of those kinds of crisis areas. We do get some grants from larger groups, UN bodies, and so forth, but we need to constantly supplement that for our staff. Private donations, people who give, churches who give are the instrumental way for us to actually respond.”

Click here to give to FH’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis fund!

(Header photo courtesy of Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr: https://goo.gl/daSWrS)

According to Eva DeHart of For Haiti With Love, sanitation is virtually unheard of in the streets of Haiti.

“If, in the capital of Port-au-Prince, they have a flushing toilet, you can know that they’re catching water on the roof, and anything that goes into those toilets is going straight out onto the streets,” she says.

And that’s a best-case scenario. “If you’re lucky, it goes into canals or rivers and ends up in the ocean,” DeHart says. Everyone else defecates somewhere outside. Sometimes, but not always, they’ll go into bags, but even that only goes so far when they simply throw the bags as far as they’ll fly.

“When you have entire communities who have no sanitary system at all, and most of them have no outside latrine, they’re defecating on the ground,” DeHart says. “This is a very unhealthy situation.”

That’s why For Haiti With Love is building latrines.

Photo Courtesy For Haiti With Love

For $3,500, they can help set up a community latrine to help provide sanitation needs for indigenous people. So far, their projects have been met with great success, and interest is quickly growing.

“The people were so excited about the last one we built that they wanted to know if they could have a three-hole rather than just a two-hole community latrine, and they were willing to forfeit what we would pay them in labor to help build it.”

As more latrines go up, more villages are asking for help.

“We’ve got a long list of communities now who are willing to set aside enough land to make this happen because they really, really want these projects,” DeHart says. ”We’ve got the land, the workers, the time- all we need is money, materials, and expertise.”

And it’s not just about sanitation. These latrine projects give missions workers a chance to share the hope of Christ during construction.

“They understand who they work for,” DeHart says. “Jesus will get the glory.”

Want to help? Consider giving your time, resources, and prayer to one of the latrine projects. Click here to learn more.

“Jesus uses his people. We need his people to listen to the problem, come forth, and be touched.”

Food for the Hungry’s Gary Edmonds explains, “[The Rohingya] are a stateless people and the Myanmar government has planted landmines on the border basically saying, ‘We don’t want you back.’ But at the same time, they’re not really fully engaged or fully welcomed into Bangladesh.”

(Photo courtesy of Jordi Bernabeu Farrús via Flickr: https://goo.gl/daSWrS)

Their ministry has been serving in Bangladesh since 1971, and they’ve been working with Rohingya refugees in the Cox’s Bazar area since the crisis started back in October.

Currently, Edmonds says the biggest issue facing the Rohingya in refugee camps is disease and lack of sanitation. “The situation, it’s dire. There have been floods. There’s muck and there are situations where the water is not healthy and pure. People right now are facing massive health issues. It can be health issues related to cholera, it can be simply just the disease of having to walk through feces, no latrines, no sanitation systems.”

According to a report Sunday from the UN Children’s Fund, there are 1,138 suspected cases of diphtheria in the Rohingya refugee camps and 19 resulting deaths. Children are the most vulnerable – 76% of the diphtheria cases were in kids 14 and under.

That’s why FH has partnered with Medical Teams International. They set up health clinics in the Rohingya refugee camps and even began training local Rohingya to lead sanitation initiatives.

“We believe that social credibility is of the essence. You know, here’s a traumatized people, here’s a people who have been hurt and harmed by conflict, who have fled their own state, their own nation. They’re uncertain what the future is going to hold. So we try to mobilize local people of the actual refugee community.”

Edmonds tells of one young Rohingya man who was formerly an English teacher. “We were looking to raise up and train local health people who could go in and work with family units. He came and he said in essence, ‘I’m here to serve my people; I’m here to serve my neighbors.’

“So because he had English and we were able to train him, we trained him on how to go in and use water and salt systems to prevent diarrhea. We talked about how to do basic health checkups with the folks and begin to treat them for whatever diseases were there. He began to train them in…how to use the latrine systems as well, the sanitation, so as not to contract cholera in that kind of an environment. And he basically said, ‘You’ve helped me to love my own people.’”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Now is a critical time to make a difference. Click here to give to FH’s Rohingya Refugee Crisis Fund!

In the midst of service, they are acting as God’s agents of mercy to the oppressed Rohingya people.

“That’s what we’re trying to do. We make a statement that our purpose is, together, we follow God’s call responding to human suffering,” says Edmonds.

“We are a part of a Gospel movement. We are part of a movement, I believe, of love, of mercy, of grace. This is the very essence of this kind of a season, that God is leading a movement of love, of mercy, of grace into a broken world and we have been given the privilege to push back the darkness, to respond to human suffering. So join the movement!”

(Header photo: Zohrab is one of thousands of Rohingya mothers who fled Bangladesh and barely survived with her baby, Noor. [Photo, caption courtesy of Food for the Hungry])

(Photo courtesy: India Partners)

Water even became an issue of foreign policy for India last week. Prime Minister Modi is considering changes to India’s water supply to neighboring Pakistan.

The battle for clean water is finally over for two remote villages, thanks to India Partners and their in-country cohort.

“Water was reached because a (local) politician was reached, who stepped forward to provide the water,” shares India Partners’ Donna Glass. “…and the people are crediting God for bringing the water, finally, to their village.”

Fixing India’s clean water crisis

Through indigenous partner ministries, India Partners works to provide clean, safe water for remote villages. According to the ministry, 128 million people in the country lack access to safe water.

India Partners aims to alleviate this need by digging wells in remote villages. Not only does this provide safe drinking water, the well’s central location in a village eliminates time-consuming walks.

In one village, “water is so scarce that they are walking up to two kilometers (1.2 miles) for fresh water,” Glass says. “[Villagers] are not able to go to work because they’re having to get water.”

(Photo credit: India Partners)

Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported that India holds the most people without access to clean water.

Approximately five percent of India’s 1.25 billion people lack clean water — that’s over a tenth of the world’s 650 million people without clean water access.

Sanitation is another key concern. According to World Bank, approximately 21 percent of all communicable diseases in India are related to unsafe drinking water.

India Partners addresses both needs in their Safe Water program. While the wells provide clean water, India Partners’ community health and hygiene trainings teach villagers about hand washing, basic hygienic practices, the importance of washing their food, etc.

Glass says it’s important “not just to have water, but to know that you’re keeping it clean and safe.”

More importantly, the trainings are an opportunity to present the Gospel. “All of the lessons taught [are] taught in reference to the Bible,” Glass explains.

While it opens doors for God’s Word, bringing clean water to a remote village isn’t always easy, or simple. But, sometimes God works in mysterious ways.

A well incites change

On a recent installation, teams tried and failed three times to dig a well for a remote village.

“It was so heartbreaking,” notes Glass. “But here was God working, even though it seemed like the enemy was present in this village, preventing this work from being done. God was still there, and placed a burden on this politician’s heart.”

The politician was a local authority who had promised to bring clean water to the village on several occasions. However, at each turn, he failed to deliver on his promises.

(Photo courtesy India Partners)

“The politician saw that these Christians were coming in and trying to do something that he should’ve been doing all along,” Glass explains. “To further his own career, he stepped up [and is providing clean water for the village].”

It’s yet another example of how God can use anyone to accomplish His will. What about you?

“$53 provides water for a family [and] financial help is always a great blessing for the people in India. Knowing that people across the world care enough to give of their own resources to change their lives for all time.”

Provide safe water for a family in India here.

(Image courtesy of Compassion)

But one thing you may not know about Compassion International is what they do beyond sponsorship–from water and sanitation programs to disaster relief and HIV/AIDs efforts.

Herbert Ehresman, Program Director for Complementary Interventions, says the focus is always the wider context of the care of the child.

“Our distinctives are Christ-centered, Church-based, and Child-focused. So while we don’t do broad community development, we do serve and support that local church, but that local church then does reach out into their community.

“For example, if a church community needs clean water or they lack sanitation and latrines, or let’s say the student has now grown into a beautiful young teen or adolescent and they have an opportunity to go to vocational school or even university: that’s where funding over and above the $38 a month becomes important.” Ehresman says both sponsors and donors then invest in the additional grass-roots programs that are identified by the partner churches themselves.

(Image courtesy of Compassion)

The health and safety of children are always at the forefront of every need that’s identified by the local churches serving the nearly 2 million Compassion children worldwide.

With the global celebration of World Water Day, Ehresman says water is priority for Compassion’s complementary intervention efforts; but water is not a stand-alone. “Clean water is only partially effective; there’s also the sanitation side which is latrine and waste disposal. Some of the communities we work in– particularly some places in Africa and India–still practice open defecation. Flies feed on the feces, and then if [those flies] get in your food or even land on open containers of water, it will spread disease. So there is a cycle of clean water, waste disposal, and a hygiene component that are embedded into Compassion’s curriculum.” WaSH — which stands for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene — all work together in Compassion’s complementary intervention model.

“For us in Africa, the programmatic issue is not simply about water or sanitation/toilets, but water and sanitation/hygiene. It is a false developmental dichotomy to focus on one while neglecting the other elements. Often times, the sanitation/hygiene aspect gets lost when the conversation is limited to water only.” – Sidney Muisyo, Compassion Africa Regional Vice President

While sponsorship is predominately featured on its website, Ehresman says there are other ways to get involved with Compassion’s work worldwide on this World Water Day. “Right next to the tab that says ‘Sponsor a Child’ is also a button that says ‘Ways to Donate,’ and that will open up more ways to give to more project-based work, be it clean water [or] educational opportunities.”

(Photo by Reach Beyond)

Lesotho (MNN) — After three days of training, 50 men and women danced across the stage to receive certificates for completing a community health worker training course in Lesotho, Africa.

During the three days of health training, Reach Beyond staff members spent many moments with the group of local volunteer health workers. Tears of joy and sorrow were shed as the participants worshiped God together and learned about good hygiene practices including hand washing, transmission of disease, the importance of clean water and sanitation, basic first aid, and care for dying patients.

The training course was held in partnership with a local Christian radio station, Harvest FM. The ministry’s director, Mary Lekhoaba, felt challenged to expand the hands-on aspect of the ministry and asked Reach Beyond for assistance with medical supplies and training of community healthcare volunteers.

President of Reach Beyond, Wayne Pederson, says, “When we gave some basic teaching about clean water, this one woman said, “Hey, we’re not going to have tummy aches in our village anymore because now we know how to have clean water for our people.”

Another man was amazed to discover that dirt should not be put into a cut to help it heal. “As the explanation followed–why soap and clean water help heal and keep infection away, a bright smile of understanding passed over his face,” says co-leader of the training course, Karen Cole. “Now he would share his knowledge with the elders of the village.”

Pederson is thankful for “these 50 men and woman who came together and learned some basic hygiene principles. They can take back to their villages life-changing and community-changing” information, he says.

Teaching locals about health care give Reach Beyond the opportunity to make a difference in the villages throughout Lesotho.

“People don’t care what you know until they know that you care,” says Pederson. “When the radio station begins to do training and health care, it gives them an identity, a reputation, and integrity in the community that really makes a difference.”

Helping the locals with healthcare opens the door for Reach Beyond to share the Gospel. Trainers encourage and challenge the fifty men and women to serve their patients with compassion and love, seeing them through the eyes of Jesus.

Pederson asks for prayer and support as the ministry continues to teach locals basic health care.

You can make a difference in the lives of villagers by giving funds to Reach Beyond, volunteering, and prayer.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Bolivia (MNN) — A hungry child in Bolivia finishes her third meal of the day. She then goes outside to play.

But as the other kids race around, she is still lethargic, anemic.

This child needs deworming treatment or she will continue wasting away.

Food for the Hungry (FH) recently delivered 1.5 million doses of deworming medication to the Bolivia Ministry of Health.

These medications will improve the lives of 750,000 Bolivian children. The doses are meant to be taken twice a year.

A case study by the International Resident Exchange Program (IREP) in Ontario observed parasites in children as a common problem in Bolivia. The medication is simple, but Bolivian families often don’t have access to the treatments needed to deworm their kids.

Parasites are contracted through unsanitary food and water consumption. 65% of the Bolivian urban population have unimproved sanitation facilities, as does 90% of the rural population.

Please pray for healing in Bolivian communities both physically spiritually. FH exists to reflect the love of Christ through ministry to end world hunger. Addressing brokenness in communities physically and in relation to God brings true healing, according to their Christ-centered mission.

It costs just $50 for FH to deworm 1,000 children. Click here to support FH’s deworming initiatives.

A team from India Partners began a three-day training course in Andhra Pradesh yesterday, educating village leaders on the importance of maintaining a safe water source and practicing good sanitation and hygiene.

This training teaches villagers practical solutions to keep their water safe. Leaders will learn about the transmission of diseases when fecal waste is not disposed of properly. They'll also be taught the importance of handwashing after using the bathroom and before preparing or eating food.

Over the past several years, through partnership with a local Indian non-profit, India Partners has provided access to safe water for over 73,000 people living in 92 villages. But safe water isn't enough to keep people healthy.

In rural India, an estimated 67% of villagers have no improved sanitation facilities and practice open defecation.

“Thousands of people hopelessly die every year from diseases such as diarrhea and cholera,” says Prahbhakar Jena, an India Partners field representative living in India.

Jena believes educating Indians on WASH has the power to transform the health of an entire community. When safe water is combined with good sanitation and hygiene, the number of deaths caused by water-related diseased can be reduced by up to 65%, according to the World Health Organization.

“I am really excited about the WASH training because it will create an awareness among the people about the impact of having unclean water and poor sanitation,” says Jena.

“Take care of your health, and your health will take care of you,” he adds.

India Partners works alongside indigenous Christian grassroots agencies focused on alleviating poverty and injustice. They work together to utilize the entire Body of Christ and seek answers to the problems facing India today.

To come alongside India Partners in WASH training and save lives in a simple way, click here.

According to the Indian Association of Pediatricians, babies in India account for 25% of the world's total deaths, simply because their moms don't have clean water to drink.

"India has major problems with unclean water and lack of sanitation," says Brent Hample of India Partners.

The World Bank says approximately 21% of all communicable diseases in India are related to unsafe drinking water. It's estimated that 665 million people in India defecate in open sewers or fields, infecting water sources with diseases like stomach worms, typhoid, and cholera.

Poor sanitation and hygiene practices hasten the spread of disease from village to village.

"We are working with Waiting for Water not only to provide a well, but also to educate the villagers in sanitation and hygiene practices," says Hample.

You can get involved, too. Just take the money from something you're giving up for Lent to help India Partners build clean water wells. For example, if your morning coffee costs $4.00 and you decided to give it up for Lent, that's $180 you could set aside for a water ministry like this.

Hample says, "It only costs $155 for one well to provide clean water for an entire village–around 1,000 people usually."

Wondering what Scripture says about issues like this?

At WaitingforWater.org, you'll find free resources such as "individual Bible studies, devotionals…sermon notes, group Bible study resources that tie in Scripture with water, sanitation, and hygiene," states Hample.

Lent begins this year on February 13–Ash Wednesday–and ends on March 30.

"Make that a time of devotion to learn more about this issue and what the Scriptures have to say about it," Hample says. Ask God what He would have you do during this time of remembering His sacrifice.

Click here to learn more about the opportunities with India Partners.

"Pray that people's hearts are open, that churches will want to go deeper and learn more about clean water and sanitation," requests Hample.

"Pray that God will mobilize the Church to unite and help provide Living Water, as well as physical water, around the world."

Paul Darilek of Living Water International (LWI) remembers seeing this first-hand.

"We saw a cow just urinate and defecate in the water upstream," he recalls. "We asked [the family we were with], 'What do you do when that happens?'

"He said, 'Well, we just kind of try to move it aside and then we wait for a little while, then we gather our water.'"

Drilling a well would provide a cup of clean water in Jesus' name, but it wasn't the complete solution to transforming communities in need. Instead, LWI took a different approach. They launched their first WASH program in Haiti recently near Port-au-Prince.

"WASH…means WAter, Sanitation, and Hygiene," Darilek explains. "Sanitation and hygiene education–when combined with clean water–can more than double the disease reduction that happens."

You know the saying, '"Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and he'll never go hungry again?" That's kind of the idea behind the WASH Program. It spans three to five years and along with providing a clean water source, LWI teaches people how to maintain proper sanitation and hygiene.

WASH is making an eternal difference, too, by developing "relationships within which we share the Gospel," says Darilek.

Pray that communities will open their eyes to the Living Water, Jesus Christ. Click here to help tackle the clean water crisis with Living Water International.