As many of you know, I just finished my three week residency as part of my Masters in International Development. I now have five classes to complete in order to earn my degree in May 2015. Perhaps one of the most sobering and humbling experiences I have encountered so far was a simulation of an international humanitarian disaster in my International Disasters and Humanitarian Crisis class. This class is taught be one of the leading Christian Disaster Relief practitioners and it was an honor to learn from him.
This simulation involved a complex humanitarian disaster in a fictitious country and our team of three people had a day and a half to plan our fictitious organization's response. In our case, a neighboring country had financed three rebels groups to fight a proxy war in our country. As a result of the fighting and unrest in the north, the amount of internally displaced persons swelled dramatically. In a short period of time, our team needed to deal with the ambiguity, complexity and urgency of the situation or thousands of people would die. We needed to come up with a planning matrix that included a detailed budget, HR plan, advocacy and communication plan and safety plan. More importantly we needed our Lord in a time like this.
We decided that based on our resources and program size, to work in a IDP camp of over 200,000 men, women and children and handle the food portion of the response in the camp. During the simulation we learned that four areas need to be covered at the basic level: food, shelter, health and water, hygiene and sanitation. Just our response for a three month period on the food portion of the camp was budgeted at nearly 8 million dollars to feed the 200,000 people!
We learned several things in this simulation. First, cross-cultural humanitarian disasters are ambiguous and do not provide a great deal of clarity and information. Nothing can be more frustrating than not having adequate information to make a decision that will impact millions of lives. Second, these disasters are very complex, and people and organizations need to have advanced skills and giftings when people’s lives hang in the balance. I am personally grateful for how God has used Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision and other Christian organizations to respond, in the name of Jesus, to these horrific situations. Third, the urgency of the situation is overwhelming and we need the Lord to be our guide as we reach out to bring relief to those who are impacted by disaster.
I learned that we can be God’s answer to disaster, but we must come equipped and spiritually mature to handle the ambiguity, complexity and urgency these tragedies bring.
So what do natural disasters and humanitarian crisis have to do with Wycliffe and reaching people with God's word? A lot. Most of these communities are vulnerable and a disaster may bring many of them to the brink of destruction. It is important as we bring God's word, that communities learn elements of resiliency that will allow them to survive a crisis and understand they have the human assets and a big God that will allow them to continue on even after disaster strikes!
