March 1, 2007

Friends,

People often ask me if I feel overwhelmed or depressed by the work that I do for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. I often visit places where there have been great tragedies, totally disrupting people’s lives. Most of the time, I am not depressed, but impressed by God’s work being done in the face of the evil of war, or the overwhelming destruction of natural disasters. These are often places where the people of God shine.

Last week however, I visited a county in Ukraine, Carpatlaja, to see how we, the PC(USA) could accompany our brothers and sisters there as they care for the local people. There is no acute disaster at the moment. We talked about restocking the emergency warehouse that was destroyed in a fire a few months ago.

Carpatlaja occupies a large area between the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains and the Tisza River, which is often flooded in the spring. Twice in the last 10 years, severe floods led to mass evacuations of people, homes totally destroyed, and some loss of life. In preparation for the next bad flood, the church maintains a warehouse of water pumps, rubber wading boots, rubber rafts, generators for emergency electricity, bags for sandbags, communication equipment, and water purification equipment. When flooding begins, the church immediately moves into action in the poorest areas, where government help is never seen.

In flood emergencies, there are a number of typical problems. When the water is rising, it is necessary to protect people and property as much as possible, and provide shelter, food, water, first aid, and communication. Following a flood, it is necessary to clean out flooded buildings and repair and rebuild roads and other infrastructure. In this area, all of these things are made more complex by the situation prior to the flood.

This is a very poor county. The roads that are paved are poor, with some having pot holes big enough to eat an entire car. There is no public water system. People use wells. Previous mining for gold in nearby mountains has left the ground water contaminated by arsenic and other toxic chemicals, and those responsible left a long time ago with their profits. Doctors in the area have documented neighborhoods where people are barren and livestock become sterile by the second generation. Tuberculosis is rampant, as are many other chronic diseases. When a flood comes, it is that much harder to save lives and restore livelihoods because of the problems prior to the flood.

The complexity of addressing the issues at hand boggles the mind. Carpatalja is bordered on the north and east by the Carpathian Mountains, isolating it from the rest of Ukraine and its meager government resources. On the opposite side are the borders of European Union countries—Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. This means that people must have a passport to cross the borders, and the passport must be obtained from the government on the other side of the mountains.

In Carpatalja, there is no Environmental Protection Agency or Center for Disease Control. There is no organization that can research the geology and find a deep water source to provide clean drinking water to pipe into homes. These problems are things that the local people are confronting on their own. The rampant tuberculosis is being addressed by the few doctors, but many people cannot afford to buy the medicine prescribed. Jobs are very scarce, and most people raise their own gardens and small livestock to feed their family.

During our visit, we were hosted by the head of the diaconal program for the church, Bela Nagy, a church worker who lived through the Soviet occupation, the floods, the hardships and still works in God’s name to serve the people of this area. His genius for making something out of nothing has helped many people. He took us to their bakery, which bakes daily for the poor, the elderly, and children in the preschool. During emergencies it produces 1,000 loaves a day for those in need. This “bakery” is a 1952 mobile army bakery trailer outfitted in one end with four commercial ovens. The church parked it next to an old building that became the kitchen for mixing dough, and then built an awning over the trailer. The bread is mixed in the kitchen, put in pans, and taken to the trailer to rise and bake. It tastes fantastic! This is typical of the creative “making something out of nothing” that people do here.

After my visit to Ukraine, I felt overwhelmed. My brothers and sisters in the church work hard to minister to the people in their care. They have been resourceful, patching and repairing discarded WWII equipment donated by richer countries. They have been generous in their poverty, sharing what they have with those in need. However, the underlying problems are huge. Please pray with me for guidance and grace as we seek to find what we are called to do here.

Kathy Angi

The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 180