Latter-Day Saints aids disaster areas

THE Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is reaching out silently to more than 10,000 families in disaster-prone areas in Papua New Guinea through their humanitarian aid programme.
Missionaries of the church have worked tirelessly over the last months to provide assistance to nearly 100 villages along the Sepik River in East Sepik, Fly River and Daru in Western and Malalaua in Gulf providing food supplies and other humanitarian needs like medicine.
Last week, president Meliula Fata of the PNG and Solomon Islands mission and his wife Sr Pona Fata from Samoa visited villages along Sepik River in the Angoram district  and distributed portions of rice packs, flour, tinned fish and tinned meat to more than 2,000 locals from 11 villages in Wewak who were affected by floods.
These were distributed along with number of water bores and pumps, 3,000 water containers and 700 mosquito nets and tarpaulins.
Prior to that, missionaries Elder White and wife Sr White, originally from Melbourne, Australia, visited and distributed food supplies and much needed assistance to villages in Malalaua and the nearby districts recently hit by drought.
Kukipi, Keauta, Aetoare, Savaiviri, Lese and Aolive were part of the aid programme along with Isumo and Daru in the Western.
All of these was done with the approval but with no assistance, at all, from the government.
“We’ve delivered 40 tonnes of food at a cost of K235,000 to Wewak, 12 tonnes to the cost of K70,000 to Gulf and six tonnes to Isumo in Western,” Fata said, adding the mission also met the cost of transport and the logistics.
Fata said they operated independently but work alongside the government through church organisations such as the Salvation Army and others.
“We will continue to reach out to the communities and families who are affected,” he added.
The mission in PNG has reached out in a big way but has been quiet about its operations to restore and serve disadvantaged communities.