WINTER IS COMING!

Reported Friday, November 25, 2005, by John McGhee, Emergency NGO director, Pakistan

I am not a weatherman. But having spent the last nine nights in a tent here in Rawalpindi, I can testify that winter is coming to Pakistan. At this time last year,10 feet of snow blanketed the rugged mountains of the Bagh district where 58, 275 households with 7 people per family lived, in temperatures ranging from 20 degrees F down to -30 degrees F. As of tonight, there is miraculously no snow on the ground.

Bagh is a mountainous district where the non governmental relief organization I direct has been assigned to work by the United Nations-led consortium of of 42 NGOs and faith-based agencies.

WINTER IS COMING
Kashmiri mountain people from Bagh live in cave-like dwellings made of wood and stones which are carefully carried or rolled down precipitous mountain heights to the building site. There they cook over wood fires and kerosene stoves.

This year, these wirey, tough shepherds grazed their sheep, planted small terraced gardens, handmade their rough clothes and quilts, and dried food. All of this to prepare for the brutal winter, when they stay inside, snuggling up to their sheep, goats, donkeys, and cattle to keep warm.

And then one of the world's largest earthquakes on record hit Pakistan, posting an official death toll of 72,385. Now, more than a month later, another 64,290 are still missing. Tonight, in the Bagh district alone, there are 12,486 less people. They did not migrate. They died or are missing. And there are another 10,000 walking wounded.

I saw some of them two days ago in Islamabad, Pakistan's capitol, at a 1500-bed hospital jammed with more than 6000 patients! They were being treated in tents, entryways and broom closets. In some wards, I counted 20 beds jammed together, filled predominantly with women and children whose faces and limbs were squashed from falling rocks.

If this disaster were not bad enough, WINTER HAS COME TO KASHMIR. According to statistics compiled today by my staff, working on their day off, people in the Bagh district have lost 88% of their cave-like houses.



Tonight 51, 282 families are sleeping outside with no shelter or blankets. If you do the math you'll find that 380,512 mountain people are shivering in sub-freezing tempartures, with very few animals left to generate warmth. This is just in Bagh, one of three Kashmir districts hit by the mega-quake.

From the first day of the quake, I have carried a heavy load in my heart for the survivors. I was moved by the text in 2 Timothy 4:21, "Come before winter." I volunteered and was later invited to lead an outstanding NGO that is providing non-food items (NFIs) like medicine, hygiene kits, lanterns, stoves, blankets, and tents to the Bagh district.

Since arriving, nine days ago, our staff in Europe and Pakistan has distributed 20,000 blankets, and 497 tents based on funded proposals from generous donors in Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Sweden. Another 15,000 blankets, 60 large tents for schools, 120 wood burning stoves for the schools, and 6000 hygiene kits, will be distributed by helicopter within 5 days.

But I can't sleep tonight because WINTER HAS COME TO KASHMIR and the United Nations logisticians comprised of veteran military commanders, statisticians, scientists, and computer wizards with whom I have met every other day since arriving, told me today that by December 10, we won't have to worry about transporting tents and blankets any more. There just won't be a need for them. At that time 14 of the 23 helicopters which now transport over 200 tons, making 180 trips per day, will be going to back to the UK and Iraq.

Yesterday, the president of Pakistan spoke on TV, detailing the three most urgent priorities:
1. tents
2. quilts
3. psycho-social services for survivors

As of this moment, all ten of the NGOs working the Bagh district have distributed a total of 9,000 tents (20% of the needed tents) and 124,192 blankets (35% of the needed blankets), during the past 5 weeks. At this rate, 250,000 human beings from Bagh will freeze to death by December 10, 2005.

WINTER HAS COME TO KASHMIR TONIGHT
This reality is simply unacceptable. It is crunch time.
It's time to face the fact that the combined might of Pakistan and US military, UN forces, and more than 40 NGOs cannot deal with the impending mega-disaster.

So Denise and I are prayerfully proposing to raise 8 million dollars of private tax-exempt donations within two weeks in order to provide enough tents to for everyone to be warm, if two families pack themselves together (14 people in a winterized tent that is 12' by 12") and enough warm quilts for everyone.

I have arranged, by faith,for the first installment of 1000 of the needed 35,710 tents to be delivered on Monday.

1. I have arranged for a loan to pay for this first load which will take 10 trucks and 10 helicopter drops to deliver. This order must be paid within 48 hours.
2. I have arranged for 1500 tents costing $225,000 to be delivered every day after that until it's too late.
3. I have arranged for 10,000 quilts costing $75,000 to be delivered every day until there are no more needed, starting on Sunday.

It will take $7,375,005 to do it. Denise and I are anxious to begin this drive with a donation based on 10% of our net worth. Thanks for partnering. Please send your tax-deductible donation ASAP by a 24 hour mail service to:

Pak Quake Fund
Central California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
P. O. Box 770
Clovis, CA 93613