I got the following information in an email from Mercy Corps, a relief and development agency I trust, founded by a Christian Dan O’Neill and supported by singer John Michael Talbot. Please give.
Help Speed Relief to Earthquake Survivors
Thousands of survivors from Saturday’s earthquake in Indonesia are injured, homeless and grieving for lives lost. Mercy Corps is in the most affected villages on the island of Java, rushing rapid relief to those in need.
We need your help to deliver ongoing, critical aid to families who have lost everything.
Our emergency response team is providing families whose homes were destroyed with “survival kits” that contain tarpaulins, blankets and hygiene products. Temporary shelter is one of the most important issues in the aftermath of the earthquake, which killed almost 5,700 people and left 200,000 without homes.
Mercy Corps in working in four villages around the devastated city of Bantul. The agency expects to serve more than 25,000 survivors in the near-term, then continue to assist families as they rebuild their homes and lives.
Mercy Corps has a long history of helping Indonesian families recover from conflict and disasters. We responded with lifesaving aid within hours of the 2004
Indian Ocean Tsunami, and are still helping over 423,000 tsunami survivors as they continue to restore their communities.
Earthquake survivors need your help today. Please speed immediate relief to them by making a generous donation today.
This morning listening to the radio on the way on in, they were noticing that many in the West are experiencing compassion fatigue from too many disasters around the world in recent years. I confess I have felt this a little at times, but more so in more personalized presentations of need. But compassion fatigue? Really? And even if it is there, what about hunger fatigue, sickness fatigue, heartsick fatigue? What about fatigue from hopelessness?
I remember reading a war comic many years ago and in one scene the soldiers are having break in the action and the commander says “Smoke, if you got ’em,” meaning cigarettes. Well, might I similarly suggest, “Give if you got it.”