‘Prayer is a mighty thing’: Church networks offer hope to communities that ‘lost everything’ in Nepal

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter

(Republished from The Christian Post – christianpost.com)

Days after catastrophic landslide flooding in Nepal left more than 1,000 people dead, Christian organizations and church networks are mobilizing for what they anticipate will be a years-long effort to aid survivors who’ve lost “everything,” including countless children who’ve lost parents and are now living as orphans.

Amid the “stench of dead bodies” filling the air and people having to trek through mud up to their knees, entire communities in Nepal along the Lende Kholā and Trishuli Kholā rivers have been left completely devastated, with an uphill battle for recovery.

“[Y]ou have this entire community in these areas completely overwhelmed by flooding and mud, and everything is gone,” GFA World President Bishop Daniel Timotheos Yohannan told The Christian Post. “Their animals are gone, their farmland is gone, their families are gone, their housing is gone, the schools are gone.”

Last Wednesday, a collapse of the Langtang Lirung mountainside into a glacial lake sparked a 5.2-magnitude landslide that resulted in the displacement of rock and ice into the river systems, creating massive debris flow and flooding that caused widespread destruction for villages dozens of miles downstream.

In interviews with The Christian Post, Yohannan, Operation Blessing President Drew Friedrich and Samaritan’s Purse CEO Franklin Graham described the dire situation on the ground as numerous homes, structures and churches have washed downstream.

‘Prayer is a mighty thing’ 

“Every church in America should be paying attention to this and to bring it before their people,” Yohannan proclaimed. “Prayer is a mighty thing, and if we can get more of our people to pray, God can do incredible things.”

While two churches affiliated with the Texas-based GFA World, formerly known as Gospel for Asia, were heavily damaged by the flooding, Yohannan praised the church leaders for stepping up to the plate despite the difficulties they face.

“I was so encouraged to see that even our priests who … had just lost everything the very next day, they’re there with the relief team, helping those who had lost everything around them,” Yohannan said.

Yohannan urged Americans to pray for the government and people of Nepal and “pray for the national missionaries of GFA World that they would have this physical strength and the emotional strength as they continue to serve the people in those areas.” He wants to see every church in the United States “spend at least two minutes in their service to pray for Nepal.”

Graham, the son of legendary evangelist Billy Graham and CEO of the North Carolina-based Samaritan’s Purse, also urged Americans to pray for the people of Nepal, recalling a particularly heart-wrenching interview he saw on TV.

“I just … saw one lady interviewed. She said, ‘I’ve lost everything.’ She lost her husband, she lost her children, she lost her home,” Graham told CP.

“And you just feel for people like this, and you wish you could go up and put your arms around them and … encourage them and hold them. And we are. We’re going to do that as much as we can,” he vowed.

Relief efforts currently underway 

The disaster response team for Operation Blessing, the Virginia-based humanitarian arm for the Christian Broadcasting Network, consists of about 35 people worldwide, and 11 members are currently on the ground in Nepal, including Senior Director of Global Disaster Response Diego Traverso, a water engineer and a production chef.

“We plan to produce hot meals as well as make sure we have clean water systems set up, and then we’ll establish some partnerships on the ground as well,” Friedrich said.

Operation Blessing is partnering with Compassionate Hands for Nepal to provide water filtration systems, solar lights and emergency food packages for those displaced by the floods.

“The destruction was incredible, but what’s made it even more difficult is there’s been continuing rain that’s … happened,” Friedrich said.

“The roads that were already washed out are continuing to get even worse. Transportation’s very, very difficult,” he explained. “You got to be very, very cautious” on mountain roads, noting the possibility that they could end up “washed out or eroded.”

One of Operation Blessing’s highest priorities in Nepal is “feeding children who have become orphans” as a result of the flooding and mudslides.

“We’ve seen a lot of kids who’ve lost parents as a result of this,” Friedrich warned. “That’s going to be a generational impact where we’ve got to figure out what happens next for those kids.”

Friedrich estimated that the number of children who lost their parents due to the flooding is “well into the hundreds” and “could even get into the thousands.” He said they “are now living in an orphanage” and “facing life” in “a country that’s not necessarily set up to handle that kind of thing.”

“Every day, there’s signs of hope and also more devastation,” he maintained. “As our team hands out … solar lanterns to people who’ve been in complete darkness for several days, it seems like such a small thing, but that little shimmer of light really does remind them that there’s … better days ahead. And then certainly as we feed people as well, many of these people have been displaced for several days and … they don’t know where their next meal’s coming from or what that’s going to look like and so a hot meal can mean everything to them.”

Yohannan said partners on the ground are receiving warm responses as they distribute food, water, clothing and tents.

“This is a week later now that some of our people met those who were in greatest need, and they said, … ‘This is the first time that someone is visiting us. We haven’t had any help yet,'” Yohannan said. “So you’re talking a whole week has gone by where many people haven’t had any kind of help, any kind of relief.”

What’s next 

GFA’s relief efforts in Nepal could last for several years, with Yohannan suggesting that any hope that these communities can recover within a year or two is “unrealistic.”

“I don’t know if many of these people can even go back to the same areas and reestablish themselves because you’re talking about their farmlands and talking about their schools and their communities [are] completely gone,” he said.

Graham predicted that Samaritan’s Purse will be on the ground in Nepal for months, raising the possibility that the organization will eventually be constructing a field hospital there. Samaritan’s Purse is basing its operations out of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, where volunteers are “giving the supplies to the church partners who will take them to the people.”

“We always respond in Jesus’ name, and that’s why we’re working with the churches,” Graham insisted. “When we’re all said and done, and we’re gone, the church is still there, and I want the people who get the aid to … see the church, not Samaritan’s Purse. I want the church to get the credit. I want the church to be seen and the church will have an opportunity to … bring that spiritual support.”

With seven volunteers on the ground in Nepal, Graham said that Samaritan’s Purse may change the focus of its relief efforts based on “what the churches request.” For now, “shelter for those that have survived” is the most pressing need in Nepal.

While Operation Blessing is concentrating its early relief efforts in Devighat and Rasuwa District, the organization plans to expand its operations as conditions allow.

“As we set up our community kitchen, we’re going to have a bread baking kitchen that we’re going to be able to work out of as well,” Friedrich said. “We know that we’ll be able to really help these people begin to recover.”

“One of the benefits of us at Operation Blessing is that we do so many different things, including children’s programming. And again, this partner of ours on the ground is … doing children’s programming year-round. So we’ve got some things that are set up to help love on and disciple and educate kids, and hopefully we can bring some of these … newer kids who are now orphans into those programs as well.”

‘A very devastating time’

While the flash flooding in Nepal is one of several natural disasters worldwide that have inflicted widespread damage this year, Nepal faced tragedy after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in 2015.

Samaritan’s Purse was on the ground providing relief at the time of the earthquake. Graham told CP that having a network of contacts on the ground has been helpful as his organization seeks to provide assistance following last week’s disaster.

“We have a lot of contacts and a lot of church groups there that we are working through. So we’re working through our existing network, and we’ve got a plane coming in,” he noted. Some of the aid items on the plane include cooking utensils, solar lights and blankets.

GFA, which has several partner churches in Nepal, helped the country respond to a more recent earthquake in 2023. Yohannan characterized the flooding as far more damaging to Nepal.

“The earthquake pretty much rocked the whole of Nepal, and you had over 1 million people displaced,” he recalled. “The majority of the damage was buildings and shelters being knocked down. So the immediate relief work was safety and shelters and of course … food and clothing and water.”

By contrast, Yohannan said the damage from the flooding has left buildings either “washed away” or covered in “20 to 30 feet of mud.” Yohannan said GFA’s partners on the ground have shared how they were “trekking through mud up to [their] … knees” with “the stench of dead bodies and rotting flesh” in the air.

“People all around you are weeping and crying because they have no hope,” he alleged. “So the devastation that happened from the earthquake was a devastation of the loss of property, and there was a lot of loss of life.”

“I would say emotionally, this is a very devastating time. You had the earthquake, then you had COVID, which basically locked down the entire country,” he added. “And … as you know, Nepal thrives on tourism, and when you lock the whole country down, and no one can get there … it hurts the whole country … in a devastating way.”

“And then now you have this … flooding, even though it’s more isolated to the north, the whole of Nepal is feeling the effects of one disaster after another,” he continued.

Yohannan expressed gratitude that GFA’s partners “are bringing hope and healing to these people that really have lost all hope” in “the name of Christ.”

“This has kind of been the pattern that we’ve seen, whether it’s a tsunami in Sri Lanka or it’s the major earthquake earlier in Nepal or it’s even during the COVID lockdown, our people were able to continue bringing hope and healing and the believers themselves giving up everything they can to help their friends and their neighbors,” Yohannan said.