ENI – “God sends his angels in times of disasters. These are the angels God sent to us when we stood stunned unable to decide what to do next,” said V. K. Equbal, a Muslim, of a Christian project to build a disaster shelter and community centre at a Muslimmajority village in southern India hit by the December 2005 tsunami.
The multipurpose disaster shelter is being built by the Churches Auxiliary for Social Action, the social welfare wing of 24 Protestant and Orthodox churches in India.
CASA, with the support of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, has already built 85 disaster-resistant houses in the village where most of the 200 dwellings were swept away by the earthquake-triggered tsunami.
“We could have never dreamt of building a house like this in our lifetime,” said C. K. Kunjappan, a Hindu, as he stood inside his 40-square-metre home built by the church agency at a cost of about $6,000.
