India. A nation engulfed by a tsunami of grief. Covid-19 has overwhelmed many parts of this vast country, its health services and institutions. Hospitals have run out of oxygen, medical staff cannot help the queues of desperate patients, and bodies are piling up as people die in vast numbers.
The Indian Christian community, like their compatriots, are suffering. Reports coming in speak of many, many church leaders contracting the virus and dying. Others are ill, languishing at home because there is no treatment. Their congregations, also sick and dying, are left without pastoral care in their anguish.
An email to our office today (23 April 2021) sums up a few recent messages from Indian Christians: several contacts confirmed that over 50-60 senior church leaders have died … Pastor M wrote that “in the last seven days we have lost four pastors to COVID” … another organisation lost three missionaries within a week. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.
The lockdown is causing severe suffering to the poorest, the day-labourers, who now have no work and no income, amongst whom are many Christians. They desperately need help but there is nowhere to go.
Barnabas Fund is working with Indian Christian leaders to provide assistance, both food and medical help, for our brothers and sisters. Will you give a gift to help the Christians of India impacted by Covid-19?