Greetings from Pakistan!  

It is time to share with you once again and bring you up to date on our Earthquake Project, which so many people are part of.  Rehabilitation is a slow process and it was not easy to wait and see what the Government would do!  As Columban Sisters, this is our third direct involvement.  The first was a truck of foodstuffs to Balakot; the second was to bring people winter-tents to Muzzafarabad in 2006 and now this housing project. The housing project seemed like an impossible dream but there is no impossibility when God is involved!  

An Impossible Dream?  

Discussions with Catholic International NGO’s on the plight of our Christians after the earthquake in Pakistan led to research being done by NGO’s who came up with the following findings:

·         No Christian can possibly get land in Muzaffarabad;

·         Selling land there is like selling your mother!

·         They have been given land for burial!

·         Acquiring land is impossible.

·         No legal papers…therefore no benefits from NGO’s or Government to build a house or make any improvement!     June 2006.

But in every age God hears the plight of God’s people and can make the impossible possible, against all odds.  The Earthquake was a humanitarian crisis and to the extent that the Majority group gets aid, so too should the voiceless Minorities.  Prior to our pilgrimage to Muzaffarabad a word was whispered into our ears, by a Pastor from the Church of Pakistan saying:

‘Go to the Christians, as they are very badly off.  They have nothing.’

 

This command led us into the unknown but it was a ‘still small voice’ that could never be quietened.

 

      It contained a deep power- beyond control - to GO!