Page 79 - GFA – A Different Drumbeat
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GFA – A Different Drumbeat 79
answer to prayer. Concerning the difficulties and opportunities I offer the following
thoughts.
Relief work falls under the three headings: emergency, rehabilitative and preventive.
It is in connection with the first two that missionary aid is largely engaged. Because
of the confidence inspired in the public mind, the missionary is often called upon to
dispense emergency relief which has been contributed by all classes of society,
representing all shades of religious thought. The gifts are prompted by a purely
humanitarian impulse in a desire to save life. They constitute public trust funds, and
their use should be in the strictest accord with the donors’ wishes. Thus, whilst the
responsibilities are heavy, nevertheless, the compensation lies in the enlarged field
of service and the sphere of wider contacts in which the missionary finds himself.
The field is not limited by the bounds of Church membership.
Emergency relief is without doubt the most difficult form of famine relief work and
calls for a very high standard of moral and physical courage. The worker must have
a cool brain, a warm heart and a steady nerve. His problem is how best to meet
limitless need with limited resource. This is the problem most dreaded by all
experienced relief workers for its only solution lies along the line of selection in order
to reduce the distressed constituency within the necessary limits for the
accomplishing of the desired task for which the funds were donated, namely “saving
life.” No effective good is accomplished through an indiscriminate distribution of
available supplies to all who are in need - dire though that need may be - if such
distribution only results in staving off for a short time death from starvation. Wherein
lies the kindness in bringing back to life and hope the sufferer who has already
passed through all the early agonies of the process of death by starvation if such an
one has eventually to be abandoned to death? Thus a selection is absolutely
necessary and the agonizing strain of this experience can only be experimentally
appreciated. To be forced into a situation where you have to select a number of
fellow creatures to be preserved unto life, with the sure knowledge that many of
those to whom you are compelled to refuse assistance are as veritably condemned
to death as though they had passed under the sentence of the law, is an experience
to be dreaded. I know no greater strain than that consequent upon an outpouring of
sympathy in the face of the appreciation of one’s inability to aid.
But when the selection has been made and the organization of the camp, or food
kitchen, established, a very rich field for evangelistic effort is open. With the strain
relieved, the relaxed mind of the sufferer becomes most receptive. Here then is a
field of ample scope for the work of the evangelist, the medical worker and the
school teacher. I remember paying a surprise visit to a large relief camp in company
with a visitor of international reputation. The camp was a well-organized one in which
the burden of the work was carried by missionaries and Christian workers. In one
large mat shed the occupants, consisting mainly of women and children, were busily
engaged in conning lessons from booklets which on investigation proved to be
answer to prayer. Concerning the difficulties and opportunities I offer the following
thoughts.
Relief work falls under the three headings: emergency, rehabilitative and preventive.
It is in connection with the first two that missionary aid is largely engaged. Because
of the confidence inspired in the public mind, the missionary is often called upon to
dispense emergency relief which has been contributed by all classes of society,
representing all shades of religious thought. The gifts are prompted by a purely
humanitarian impulse in a desire to save life. They constitute public trust funds, and
their use should be in the strictest accord with the donors’ wishes. Thus, whilst the
responsibilities are heavy, nevertheless, the compensation lies in the enlarged field
of service and the sphere of wider contacts in which the missionary finds himself.
The field is not limited by the bounds of Church membership.
Emergency relief is without doubt the most difficult form of famine relief work and
calls for a very high standard of moral and physical courage. The worker must have
a cool brain, a warm heart and a steady nerve. His problem is how best to meet
limitless need with limited resource. This is the problem most dreaded by all
experienced relief workers for its only solution lies along the line of selection in order
to reduce the distressed constituency within the necessary limits for the
accomplishing of the desired task for which the funds were donated, namely “saving
life.” No effective good is accomplished through an indiscriminate distribution of
available supplies to all who are in need - dire though that need may be - if such
distribution only results in staving off for a short time death from starvation. Wherein
lies the kindness in bringing back to life and hope the sufferer who has already
passed through all the early agonies of the process of death by starvation if such an
one has eventually to be abandoned to death? Thus a selection is absolutely
necessary and the agonizing strain of this experience can only be experimentally
appreciated. To be forced into a situation where you have to select a number of
fellow creatures to be preserved unto life, with the sure knowledge that many of
those to whom you are compelled to refuse assistance are as veritably condemned
to death as though they had passed under the sentence of the law, is an experience
to be dreaded. I know no greater strain than that consequent upon an outpouring of
sympathy in the face of the appreciation of one’s inability to aid.
But when the selection has been made and the organization of the camp, or food
kitchen, established, a very rich field for evangelistic effort is open. With the strain
relieved, the relaxed mind of the sufferer becomes most receptive. Here then is a
field of ample scope for the work of the evangelist, the medical worker and the
school teacher. I remember paying a surprise visit to a large relief camp in company
with a visitor of international reputation. The camp was a well-organized one in which
the burden of the work was carried by missionaries and Christian workers. In one
large mat shed the occupants, consisting mainly of women and children, were busily
engaged in conning lessons from booklets which on investigation proved to be
