Christians worldwide donate for flood relief in Germany
06-01-2022
Central Europe
CNE.news
A heart with the inscription 'Together we are strong' inside a flower is seen in the district of Ahrweiler, Germany, 3 September 2021. Large parts of Western Germany were hit by heavy, continuous rain in the night to 15 July resulting in local flash floods that destroyed buildings and swept away cars. Photo EPA, Friedemann Vogel
Central Europe
Christians worldwide have collected donations for the victims of the flood disaster in the German regions North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
German Protestant news service Idea reports this based on information on the website of the Diakonie (deaconry) Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe. Church congregations in Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Indonesia, for example, had sent more than 20,000 euros for flood relief by Diakonie and the church.
In congregations of the Baptist Church in Central Africa (CBCA) alone, people had collected more than 1,000 US dollars. The church's territory is in eastern Congo, in the border region with Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania, repeatedly shaken by bloody ethnic conflicts. A friend of the church had brought the money in cash to a partner congregation in neighbouring Tanzania because a bank transfer from Congo was too expensive. He had travelled 1,500 kilometres for it.
Charity in action
"No church is too poor to give aid, and no church is too rich to receive aid," read a solidarity message to the United Evangelical Mission (UEM) in the German city of Wuppertal, quoting a bishop from Tanzania.
A high stake to show solidarity. But setting a sign of solidarity across ocean borders was enormously important to the African and Asian member churches, says UEM press officer Martina Pauly. "And solidarity naturally also works from the direction of the global South to the global North. That is a charity in action."
Poland
In Protestant congregations in Eastern Europe, too, the news of the devastating flood disaster had triggered a great willingness to donate. The Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren in the Czech Republic, for example, sent more than 19,000 euros to the Diakonie for its flood relief. More than 20,000 euros came from Hungary and about 11,000 euros from Protestant congregations in Poland.
"We still remember well the help we received for the floods in 1997 and 2010, for example," explains Wanda Falk, Director General of Diakonie Poland. "We definitely wanted to show solidarity then."
More than 180 people died in Germany alone during the flood disaster in mid-July. Neighbouring Belgium was also hit hard. The flood also caused billions in property damage only in Germany.
