Tess Rivers

INDIA (BP) — Ekanpreet Malik* couldn’t sleep after the 6.9-magnitude earthquake in northeast India shook his home Sunday night. “Is today the last day?” the 10-year-old boy asked his mother. “Are we all going to die?” Hindus and Buddhists as well as Christians throughout the city are asking similar questions, reports Rita Tozer*, a 28-year-old […]

KBAL TAOL, Cambodia (BP)--Song Phu* is a healthy 2-year-old Vietnamese boy who entertains visitors to his floating home with giggles and gurgles common to toddlers around the world.       Born with the name Mong, his grandfather changed it to Song -- which means "live" -- after he was miraculously healed from a rare blood disease nearly a year ago.

KBAL TAOL, Cambodia (BP)--For a moment, Josh Nguyen thought he was back in Vietnam. Rubbing the wooden floor of a floating home in a remote village on Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake, the 44-year-old physician from Texas remembered the country he left as a refugee in 1975. Nguyen joined a team of nine other medical and dental volunteers working with the Vietnamese living in floating villages on Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. He and three nurses divided into two groups and visited from boat to boat, assessing medical needs and sharing the Gospel. Nguyen, who speaks Vietnamese, also translated for the nurse who assisted him. The trip was revealing to Nguyen, who saw himself not only in the floorboards but also in the faces and experiences of those he met on the lake. "I thought we were back," said Nguyen, a member of Second Baptist Church in Houston. "I thought we were boat people again." While the trip spawned memories for the doctor, it was a wake-up call for Gina Nguyen, 30, a pharmacist from Plano, Texas (no relation to Josh Nguyen). Gina left Vietnam in 1991 under less difficult circumstances. Although she returned to Southeast Asia two years ago on a trip with her father, this was her first volunteer trip. The member of Plano Vietnamese Baptist Church admitted she reluctantly signed up for the trip, which included medical and dental personnel from seven Baptist churches, four states and four different ethnic groups. She struggled initially with how best to contribute to the team. "I can't diagnose. I'm not trained. I didn't think I knew the Bible well enough. I've never been a translator," Gina said. "Until this trip, I thought my apartment in Texas was the center of the universe."

ISHINOMAKI, Japan (BP)--"Disaster" says it all.       Southern Baptist missionaries and volunteers finally distributed relief goods in Ishinomaki, Japan, this week after two weeks of attempting to gain access to the quake-stricken areas. Power outages, gas rationing, an escalating nuclear crisis and relocation of International Mission Board personnel hampered earlier attempts.       Ishinomaki -- a small city of around 120,000 people -- was devastated March 11 by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami. Officials estimate that more than 18,000 people died and thousands more are missing along Japan's northeastern coast.       The 11-member team spent two days distributing relief goods at multiple locations throughout the city, including an apartment complex, a nursing home and a bus station. Everywhere they went, they found grateful Japanese, eager for someone to listen to their stories.       International Mission Board missionary Jared Jones helped one man shovel debris from his home. The day before, the man received a call from local officials to identify his wife's body. The man -- a Buddhist -- talked with Jones about how his wife often encouraged him to read the Bible. The couple had been married 40 years.       "He just needed somebody to listen to him," Jones said.       Missionary Ed Jordan had a similar experience. Jordan, who works with the deaf, was distributing goods in a bus station when a colleague asked for help. One of the victims was a deaf woman who was unable to communicate with the hearing volunteers.       When Jordan talked with her in sign language about her family and her home, the woman was thrilled. "If she shook my hand once, she shook it a dozen times," Jordan said.

SENDAI, Japan (BP)--Donna Qualls is just happy to be alive. Of the 31 International Mission Board families living in Japan, the family of six lives closest to the areas most affected by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

INDIA (BP)--Multiple sets of dark eyes peered from the shadows of the small, colorful concrete homes lining the narrow dirt path. The team of Americans smiled and nodded as they passed the darkened doors, keeping one eye on the ground as they stepped gingerly over the occasional pile of animal dung. Flies swarmed, goats munched and cows lay peacefully just outside the front doors, as if the homes they guarded belonged to them.       "The Dalit live on this side of the road," explained Devadas Kumble,* a local pastor who coordinated the American volunteer mission team's activities. "Higher castes live on the other side of the road."       From where they stood, the volunteers saw little difference between the two sides of the village. On both sides, the roads were unpaved, the homes were modest and the livestock roamed freely. To the Dalit, however, the invisible line separating them from the higher castes was as impregnable as a castle wall.

SEOUL, South Korea (BP)–Celebrating 60 years of Southern Baptist work in South Korea, the Korean Baptist Convention recognized 15 former and emeritus Southern Baptist missionaries during its annual meeting in Seoul. David Hahn, 74, emeritus pastor of Seoul Memorial Church, organized the trip for the returning missionaries. Hahn said he feels a deep sense of […]

NAGOYA, Japan (BP)--Wang Lee, 80, and his wife Rose, 72, rarely agree on anything. From their modest home in Nagoya, Japan, where the two serve among the homeless, they argue playfully back and forth.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (BP)--Former Khmer Rouge operative Kaing Guev Eav's sentence is not severe enough, in the minds of many Cambodians; forgiveness is far from their thoughts.       Silas* is not one of them.       Kaing Guev Eav, known as "Duch," was sentenced to 35 years in prison July 26 by a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal -- the first of five surviving senior leaders of the notorious Khmer Rouge to be brought to trial. The communist regime's nearly four-year reign of terror in the 1970s resulted in the death of 1.7 million men, women and children in what has become known as Cambodia's Killing Fields.       Duch, who now professes to be a Christian, will appeal his sentence. At his trial he pleaded guilty but asked forgiveness for his role in the genocide. He claimed he was only following orders.       Duch was convicted of crimes against humanity, murder and torture for his role as head of the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh. At least 14,000 people died there under his command. Reduction in sentence for time served means Duch, 67, will spend the next 19 years in prison.       Silas was 8 years old in 1975 when communist leader Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge overturned the government of Cambodia. Silas was separated from his family and sent to a re-education camp where the Khmer Rouge trained him as a child soldier.       When the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia in 1979, Silas was reunited with his mother, brother and sister, but not his father....

TAEJON, South Korea (BP)--Loud music, welcome cheers and high-fives greeted 166 middle and high school students to Centrifuge Korea, which for nearly 20 years has ministered to students from U.S. military bases and international schools in South Korea, Japan, Australia and the Philippines.