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Miller (left) hands out relief supplies The Rev. John Miller of Alum Spring Baptist Church in Culpeper recently traveled to Pakistan to provide earthquake relief. |
WHILE Americans are worrying about how they will pay heating bills this winter, the Rev. John Miller knows some 3 million Pakistanis left homeless by an Oct. 8 earthquake have a more pressing concern.
"They just want to survive the winter," said the Culpeper County minister. "Right now, the cold is their enemy."
Miller, pastor at Alum Spring Baptist Church, just returned from an eight-day emergency mission to Pakistan. There, he helped deliver tents, blankets and raincoats to the people of Bagh, a town in the Pir Panjal Mountains about 100 miles south of Islamabad.
The quake measured 7.6 on the Richter scale. The latest Pakistani government estimate puts the death toll at more than 70,000.
After seeing the devastation, Miller understands the Pakistani government's concern that as many as 100,000 displaced men, women and children may die this winter if they don't get adequate shelter.
"The worst is coming because of the winter," he said.
Although tent cities are rapidly being constructed, Miller discovered two fundamental problems in persuading displaced residents to move to a central location where government aid can be dispensed more easily.
"I found that the people in that region don't really hold formal title to their land and if they leave someone else can just come there and take it from them," he said.
"Second, many of these people still have family members buried beneath the rubble of their homes, and they refuse to leave."
Miller noted that the Pakistani government lacks enough heavy equipment to clear the debris quickly.
So, said Miller, the people stay close to their destroyed homes. In an already weakened condition, they risk dying from exposure during the coming months of cold, rain and snow, he said.
Given only three days notice, Miller dropped everything to answer an international Christian call to help. He went to Pakistan with a team of Hungarian Baptists, who have a working relationship with the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.
Arriving in Islamabad by plane, he and two Hungarian men traveled all night by truck over dangerous mountain roads to take supplies to Bagh, a town of about 10,000. Because of uncertain conditions, each of the six trucks in the convoy had an armed guard, Miller said.
Reaching Bagh in early morning, the veteran of many religious mission trips was taken aback.
"The stone houses with flat roofs just collapsed when the earthquake hit," he recalled. "There was one two-story college building that was reduced to a pile of rubble 4 feet high. All 400 students inside were killed and there bodies are still there. About 80 percent of Bagh is rubble."
It was here that Miller met Pakistani Air Commodore Shahind Shirgi, on leave from the air force to take charge of providing emergency services and security for about 30,000 people in a sector around Bagh.
Soon after the relief effort began, Shirgi established a protocol that let individual village leaders determine which residents most needed the supplies.
"That way there would be no fighting," Miller said.
As a goodwill gesture, Miller and his team were allowed to hand out about 75 of the estimated 500 blankets they brought. But the rest were dispensed, as were the single-family tents, through established channels.
In an area that is predominantly Muslim and wary of Americans and other Westerners, Miller said only one woman refused to take a blanket from him.
"I don't think it was because I was an American but probably because I was a strange man," he said. The woman did take the blanket from the Pakistani next to him, Miller said.
But he also remembers one older lady who looked at him and kept repeating, "Thank you for coming and trying to help."
"It was humbling," he said, shaking his head.
While some Pakistanis may be hesitant to accept help from Americans, the 45-year-old Shirgi is not one of them.
"Over breakfast I asked him, 'What do you want from us?'" Miller recalled.
"Your expertise," Miller said the commodore replied.
Miller said the Shirgi and the Pakistani government want to tap into American ingenuity to find quick and effective ways to provide adequate and affordable housing for displaced people.
"They want us to tell them how to use available materials to build shelters that will keep the people from dying this winter," Miller said.
"Get me blueprints," Miller said Shirgi told him. "We need low-cost shelters that can be built on-site and offer a high rate of survivability."
Shirgi also told the American aid worker that Pakistanis need healthy drinking water, mobile kitchens and more tents. He also wants more Americans to come help.
"Shirgi feels that with all the other disasters in the world, the Pakistani earthquake will drop further and further into the background," Miller said. "Having Americans come will keep the Pakistani needs in front of the people."
Shirgi told Miller he thinks it will take at least two years for the people of Bagh, about 60 miles from the earthquake's epicenter, to get back to a somewhat normal life. Miller said he left Pakistan feeling almost helpless.
"You know that a lot of those people are going to die and there's not a lot you can do about it," he said.
"We're just trying to save as many as we can."
To reach DONNIE JOHNSTON:
Email: DJohn40330@aol.com
