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Myanmar (Burma)2013 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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Cyclone Nargis
On May 2, 2008, Cyclone Nargis, a massive storm packing winds of 150 miles per hour, slammed into Myanmar, leaving a trail of death and destruction from the Ayeyarwady Delta to the Thailand border. The cyclone affected more than two million people and left some 140,000 either dead or missing.
Thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses were impacted by the cyclone, yet amazingly none were harmed. Many survived by taking refuge in their newly constructed Kingdom Halls. In Bothingone, a coastal village in the Ayeyarwady Delta, 20 Witnesses as well as 80 other villagers perched for nine hours inside the roof cavity of their Kingdom Hall as floodwaters rose perilously close to the ceiling and then receded.
The branch office promptly dispatched a relief team to the worst-affected region at the mouth of the delta. Traveling through desolate terrain that was littered with corpses, the team reached the village with food, water, and medicine. They were the first relief team to reach the area. After giving the supplies to the local brothers and sisters, the team encouraged them with Scriptural talks and handed out Bibles and Bible literature, since all their belongings had been swept away in the cyclone.
To coordinate the huge relief effort, the branch office set up Disaster Relief Committees in Yangon and Pathein. These committees organized hundreds of volunteers to distribute water, rice, and other basic supplies to cyclone victims. They also arranged for mobile construction teams to rebuild Witness homes that had been damaged or destroyed by the cyclone.
One of the relief volunteers, Tobias Lund, relates: “My wife, Sofia, and I found 16-year-old May Sin Oo, the only publisher in her family, drying her Bible in the sun among the ruins of her family home. She smiled when she saw us, but a tear was trickling down her cheek. Before long, one of our mobile construction teams arrived with hard hats, power tools, and building materials and began building the family a brand-new home. The neighbors were amazed! People squatted for days around the site, which became the main attraction in the area. Onlookers exclaimed: ‘We have never seen anything like this! Your organization is so united and loving. We too would like to become Jehovah’s Witnesses.’ May Sin Oo’s parents and siblings are now attending meetings, and the whole family is making fine spiritual progress.”
The relief work continued for months. The brothers distributed tons of relief supplies and repaired or rebuilt 160 homes and 8 Kingdom Halls. Cyclone Nargis brought tragedy and hardship to Myanmar, but its storm clouds laid bare something precious—the bonds of love that unite God’s people and glorify Jehovah’s name.
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