Kathmandu and the challenge of Asian cities

                                                       

(Note: A powerful new earthquake shook Nepal May 12, killing at least 36 people and sending thousands rushing to the streets as more buildings collapsed. The 7.3-magnitude earthquake came 17 days after the 7.8-magnitude quake that struck April 25, killing more than 8,000 people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes. The new quake will add to the dismal statistics as rescue workers, including Southern Baptist relief teams, once again begin digging out.)

Nepalis have begun the long struggle to dig out of the rubble left by the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people and destroyed parts of Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city.

It’s becoming clear that the quake did even greater damage in rural areas, where Southern Baptist disaster relief workers and their Nepali Christian partners are focusing aid efforts.

But the death and destruction in Kathmandu highlight the enormous physical challenges confronting many Asian cities.

“With an annual population growth rate of 6.5 percent and one of the highest urban densities in the world, the 1.5 million people living in the Kathmandu Valley [another estimate puts the population at 2.5 million] were clearly facing a serious and growing earthquake risk,” said a report issued by a group of seismologists who visited Kathmandu a week before the April 25 temblor. “It was also clear that the next large earthquake to strike near the Valley would cause significantly greater loss of life, structural damage, and economic hardship than past earthquakes had inflicted.”

Why? Too many people crowded into too little space — in this case, a quake-prone urban area — living in old, crumbling buildings or in flimsy structures thrown together to house people arriving daily in search of jobs and a better life.

“Earthquakes don’t kill people; buildings kill people” is a common saying among seismologists. The more people living in inadequate housing, the more potential casualties. “You’re up against a Himalayan-scale problem with Third-World resources,” geologist Susan Hough told the Washington Post.

But the rapidly expanding megacities of South Asia face even greater challenges than earthquakes. The region already counts 12 of the world’s 50 largest urban centers. They need more food, water, jobs, housing and infrastructure for the millions streaming in from rural areas. Most of all, they need the hope found only in Jesus Christ.

“By 2020, India alone will have a shortage of 30 million housing units in big cities,” says Daren Cantwell,* IMB strategy leader for South Asian Peoples. “By 2030 they’re expecting 350 million more Indians to move to cities. By 2050, they expect 700 million to move to cities. The challenge for these cities to provide water, food and sanitation is huge. With this many people coming in, a city can’t assimilate fast enough. So you have these huge slums grow up — like in Mumbai, where you have 10 million people living in slums.”

Yet Mumbai, with a metro population of more than 20 million, also boasts legions of middle-class workers and the most billionaires in India. It’s the pulsating heart of India’s financial, cultural and entertainment worlds.   

“Our focus on cities will be at multiple levels of society, from the slum dwellers to the people living in high-rises to doctors, lawyers, Bollywood [India’s film industry], the whole gamut,” Cantwell says. “Finding the best places to work, the best ways to work and to multiply yourself through your national partners across a city are all things we’re dealing with as we seek strategies to reach these places.”

They’re looking for U.S. partners, too, as IMB focuses more intensively on extending the gospel in and through the world’s cities. On a global scale, urban dwellers will double to 6.4 billion by the middle of this century — 70 percent of the projected human population — according to a United Nations forecast.

“There are massive needs in cities around the world,” says IMB President David Platt. “How do we take this God-ordained movement of people toward cities, leverage what God is doing and intentionally go to cities, so we’ve got relationships when people get there? They’ve come in search of economic help or prosperity. We hope they’ll find what they need for daily life, but find in a greater way what they need for eternal life. We want to be there, ready with the gospel.”

*Name changed.

"The Decade from Hell"

Listen to an audio version of this post at
http://media1.imbresources.org/files/103/10351/10351-55297.mp3

Ten years ago this month, many people were wondering if the world would end with the beginning of the new millennium.

It didn’t happen, although in light of subsequent events, some might wish it had. TIME magazine recently dubbed 2000-2009 “The Decade from Hell” — a “10-year gauntlet” of trials and tribulations (see http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1942834,00.html).

A partial list:

-- the Sept. 11 attacks, which ended any lingering hope of a peaceful post-Cold War world

-- innumerable smaller terrorist attacks from Madrid to Mumbai

-- wars and insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Congo, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Somalia and many other places

-- earthquakes that killed tens of thousands in China, Iran and Pakistan

-- a tsunami that swept away more than 200,000 people in Asia and Africa

As if those events weren’t devastating enough, a major economic downturn beginning in 2008 continues to cause untold hardships across the globe for hundreds of millions of workers and their families.

In a struggle that captured far fewer headlines, many Christian believers died for their faith during the decade — including eight Southern Baptist missionaries. Countless other followers of Christ have suffered violence, imprisonment, harassment and other forms of persecution for living and sharing their faith.

Would it have been better if the last 10 years had never occurred? To answer yes is to misunderstand God’s sovereignty. If He is the Lord of all history, He is the Lord of recent history. He uses all things, even tragedies and actions others intend for evil, to bless the nations and bring glory to Himself.

In a December 1999 column, I observed:

“The tumultuous 20th [century] staggers to an end this month. … Historians will recall many things about it: two world wars, the fall of old empires and rise of new ones, the devastation wrought by communism and totalitarianism, the Holocaust, the spread of democracy and capitalism, man on the moon, the computer, the Bomb. …

“[But] the fresh movement of God's Spirit is the real story of the century. How else to explain the staggering growth of the church, the Gospel's spread to countless places worldwide — not just in the West — and the glorifying of God's name among peoples who've never heard it until now? God isn't finished with us. … His Spirit is quietly, inexorably, powerfully moving — like a vast, unseen river.”

God is still moving. After the great tsunami and the Pakistan quake, whole communities and regions previously cut off from the Gospel experienced the love of Christ through relief and rebuilding efforts initiated by Christians. Military conflicts have opened spiritual doors as churches and mission workers aided suffering populations and refugees. The lives of believers who remained faithful under persecution have changed history among the people they love and serve.

Ten years ago, Rasheed* didn’t know Jesus Christ as Lord. Today he is one of the leaders of a growing movement of Muslim-background followers of Christ in India. But he’s paid the price for his new commitment. As I write this, he is recovering from a broken rib and other injuries — the result of the latest (and worst) beating he has suffered at the hands of people angered by his stand for Jesus.

He remains too weak to talk much, but one of his friends related what happened:

“Rasheed shared with a couple of Muslim men who both became [believers in Christ]. One of them went home and told his family. The men in the family gathered others from the community, and six of them found Rasheed and angrily asked him questions about what he had taught this new believer. As Rasheed attempted to explain, they began to beat him. One of the men pushed him down, and he hit his head on a pile of bricks as he fell. Another continued to beat him with a cricket bat until other villagers stopped the beating and took Rasheed to his brother.”

Rasheed is learning what the earliest disciples discovered in similar times: It isn’t easy to be a real follower of Christ. It’s hard. It costs everything — especially when you’re one of the first to commit yourself to Him.

But one day, Rasheed and the many souls he is leading to Christ will look back on “The Decade from Hell” as the moment when they found the way to heaven.

*(Name changed)