Orissa, India

Two years ago, a cyclone killed 10,000 people in India's Orissa state and left an estimated 15 million people without homes. Last year, a drought left thousands without food and water. While many people have not yet recovered from these disasters, this summer has been just as devastating. A June heat wave, July flooding and renewed violence towards Christians this fall have caused enormous suffering, and the Luke Society is working hard to bring relief.

In the spring, Luke Society director Dr. Pushpa Rout and her husband, Prem, were able to focus on community health and spiritual growth. They extended their medical services into five more Hindu villages at the request of village leaders. Even though churches have been frequently attacked in the region, there's a thirst for the Gospel. In one town where the Routs were leading a Bible study, the church was burned, and they continued to meet under a thatched roof.

As summer came to Orissa, though, temperatures reached 120-125 degrees. Many wells and nearly all of the ponds dried up. Pushpa and Prem were able to help procure some water from the government, but when it was delivered in tankers, it was not safe to drink. They helped people in the communities dig deeper wells and in one of the central villages, Machamahala, helped dig a pond to collect rainwater.

But by July, the monsoons had brought so much rain that the worst floods in 50 years further ravaged the land. The waters collapsed the roof and walls of the Routs home in the city of Cuttack. Surrounding villages were washed away, and Cuttack was cut off from the rest of the nation for a week.

Pushpa wrote in a letter to the Luke Society, "The rivers on either side of Cuttack city got so much swelled-up that water entered into town and there was knee-deep water running over the roofs of high buildings for about two weeks. There was scarcity of food, water and hundreds of snakes floating in the floodwater inside the city. The situation was so bad that hardly we could sleep in the mid three weeks of July."

Prem traveled by boat to the tribal villages where they had been working, but not a single house or human being was to be found. Those who survived have been moved to higher ground. More than 100,000 people were affected by the floods, and more than 3,000 homes were destroyed. Crops washed away and farmland became completely submerged. Villagers returning to their homes encountered an acute shortage of food, and they struggled with many water-borne diseases as well as malaria.

Luke Society donors have responded to the need by raising $8,700 in relief funds to repair the Routs house, rebuild churches and provide food and clothing for the people of Orissa. But your prayers are also needed as anti-Christian violence in the area has increased since the September 11 attacks in the United States.

The Routs report that at midnight on October 12, one of the new believers they had been working with, Mr. Pankaj, age 30, was shot and killed in his home by Hindu extremists who see Christianity as a threat to their culture and religion.

"Now the village is full of tension and declared red alert," Pushpa wrote. "We are frequently going to them and working ... to support them morally and physically. Christians are mainly targeted, but the communal forces are prepared to kill anybody. However, with full determination and faith, we carry out the task for which God has chosen us to save these people for the sake of Jesus Christ. We have started small groups of prayer shells in every village. They fast and pray."