By A Mission Partner serving in South Asia 

Mithu phoned to check whether I was going to be home, he had some­thing for me. When he came to my door he unwrapped six eggs. These were the most pre­cious eggs I have ever received. Let me tell you their story.

During the extreme Pakistan floods of last year, Mithu’s village and the whole area near the mighty Indus River were badly affected. Deep water through their mud-hut village des­troyed houses, col­lapsed walls and washed away their simple pos­ses­sions, taking months to dry out. During this time Mithu and his com­munity were recip­i­ents of relief in dif­fer­ent ways, includ­ing food parcels given through the Diocese. In the rehab­il­it­a­tion phase, his widowed mother had been given two chick­ens, as a source of food and pos­sible income. These chick­ens started laying eggs, and it was six of these pre­cious eggs that Mithu, an ex-hostel student of mine, bought and shared with me. The gen­er­os­ity with which these were given was so hum­bling. In wanting to help others it can be hard to receive, and here I was being given a gift so pre­cious from limited resources, yet from unlim­ited love.

It is now around eight months since the flood­ing started, flood­ing that was on a scale hard to com­pre­hend (even living here). Reports suggest at least 7.9 million people were dis­placed, ini­tially 6.5 million in the Sindh alone. For some weeks we waited as waves of flood waters from the north of the country were tracked trav­el­ling south, waiting for the impact of the next ‘wave’ to reach com­munit­ies. The unscru­pu­lous would dig chan­nels to try and get water to flow onto neigh­bours’ lands rather than their own.

Once areas were inund­ated there was often nowhere for the water to then go, with limited drain­age. Months later, some areas are still filled with sitting water. Summer heat is just now drying that. In the mean­time, many lived on the sides of roads (which are higher ground), under plastic or tar­paul­ins if they could access them. Housing has slowly been rebuilt, and new crops planted. Two months ago I noticed most of these tem­por­ary com­munit­ies where I travel had finally left their road­side locations.

The chal­lenge of relief and rehab­il­it­a­tion on such a scale is enorm­ous, bring­ing out dif­fer­ent sides of human nature. Through the gen­er­os­ity of the many from New Zealand who gave to the Diocese here, over 250 fam­il­ies were given support includ­ing food, bedding, mos­quito nets and tar­paul­ins in their time of need. This support meant that fam­il­ies could lit­er­ally eat. Medical camps were also organ­ised, as health issues were high with so many dis­placed people living in the midst of con­tam­in­ated stag­nant water. Rehab­il­it­a­tion work groups con­tin­ues listen­ing to com­munity needs, includ­ing assist­ance in rebuild­ing (see Dio­cesan photos) and live­li­hood support with the gifting of goats.

Six months after the floods, while staying with a local padre’s family, I was amazed to hear that still people were coming to their door, morning, noon and night, hoping for some form of help, literally daily. He said he could not turn anyone away, even if he didn’t have anything left to give. He and his wife would sometimes give from their own clothes.

As resources came they would share these. And even if they had nothing, they would always invite the person to come in and drink chai and be prayed for. Padre said he is chal­lenged by Jesus’s words.

“I was hungry and you gave me some­thing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me some­thing to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me…” (Matt 25:35–36). To gra­ciously con­tinue loving when another knock comes at the door at 6am can only come from a heart filled and over­flow­ing with God’s love.

I pray that my heart will always be chal­lenged, as it has been by the com­munity around me, to love and care wherever I am, whatever my cir­cum­stances, being com­munity by doing life together. Mithu showed me by his gift that this to me is God’s kingdom being lived in action: sharing six eggs at a time.

These photos are of dif­fer­ent loc­a­tions, showing the initial flood impact, a ration dis­tri­bu­tion, the pro­vi­sion of basic housing mater­i­als and a rebuilt house in rural Sindh.

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