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Tsunami Work Leads to African Ministry
CHICAGO, IL (May 4, 2005) - North Park University junior Christine Buettgen,
who traveled to Sri Lanka to help with tsunami victims, has moved on to
work with teens, children and AIDS-infected babies in an impoverished
area of South Africa.
Jasmine Molina and Heather Jensen, who attend Bayside Covenant Church in
Roseville, California, have returned home. Buettgen attends Winnetka
Covenant Church in Wilmette, Illinois.
Buettgen and the two California women had not known each other, but met
while part of a small team that traveled to Sri Lanka, where 36,000
people were killed in the December disaster. Their time in the country
was filled with a lot of work and the sense that they were making a
difference. After working several weeks packing food, clothing and
medical supplies in the capital city of Colombo, the three were able to
work in the affected communities, Buettgen says.
"This was something we were praying about, and God gave us the
opportunity at the exact right time," she says. "The YMCA of Sri Lanka
had an already established center in the village of Kallar, just south
of Batticaloa on the East Coast of Sri Lanka. So when the tsunami hit
and wiped out the homes of almost half of Kallar's residents, the YMCA
became a center for NGOs (non-government organizations) and individual
volunteers to stay and work out of while helping with the relief effort."
The YMCA didn't have the capacity for so many people, "so we slept on
the library cement floor with bamboo mats and mosquito nets," Buettgen
recalled. While in Kallar, the women worked alongside World Vision,
Alliance Development, the French Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, and
the YMCA itself. Work varied daily. "We helped to put up temporary
shelters, water sanitation, distribution of shoes and school supplies,
and implementing community re-development programs.
"I was put in charge of a children's program that was held every
afternoon," Buettgen continued. "The goal was to bring some stability
and laughter back into the children's lives after experiencing the
trauma and heartache that they all went through." Educational and
outdoor games, art and singing every day helped the process.
"The therapy these children experienced through these activities was
unexpected and incredible," Buettgen says. The art was a window into
what the children were experiencing. "I can't even count how man dead
bodies floating in the ocean were drawn. But it was a way for these
kids to grieve, to express their heartache so they could begin to heal
and move forward with their lives. It was an incredible blessing to be
part of this healing."
As new volunteers were arriving, Buettgen says, she received
confirmation in numerous ways that she should travel to work in South
Africa. Ministering in Africa is a call Buettgen says she has
experienced since she was little. She now is working with a church
called Stellenbosh Gemeente, which has programs in a poverty stricken
black township called Kayamandi. Buettgen is helping with a program for
girls from ages eight to 13 who meet three times a week to practice
African dancing, singing and art. "It is an amazing privilege to get
such personal insight into their culture," she says. "The focus is to
build relationship with them and instill literacy education and AIDS
education through these relationships." When not working with the
children in the program, Buettgen is volunteering at a local orphanage
that cares for AIDS-infected babies.
Bayside Covenant Church and other friends are helping to support her
work, says Buettgen, who plans on returning to finish her studies and
then return to serve in Africa.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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