The Churches in North America Came to Assist in Spiritual Rebuilding

The first group of 52 are heading toward the disaster area today to help with clearing up, repairing, and moving

Lin, Fong-Min of the church in Taipei stated that the most important aspect to the disaster relief is spiritual rebuilding. It is the responsibility of religious organizations to bring in the healing to the soul. Members from the churches in Taiwan and North America have formed a Spiritual Rebuilding Service group for caring work in five areas. The first stage will continue until the end of this year.

According to William Pearce from the United States, the first group of 52 from the U. S. arrived on the eleventh. All of them are college graduates, and ninety percent of them have social work experience. Some of them went through the Los Angeles Earthquake, and wished to meet the needs of the souls stricken by this disaster. There will be more than 200 members from the churches in the United States arriving at different times to help with the disaster relief in the next few months.

Lin, Hong of the church in Taipei says that to facilitate the spiritual rebuilding, they have planned, in addition to consultations by professional physicians, visitations one by one for praying and singing hymns.

Zhou, Chia-Dong, a structural engineer of the Department of Public Constructions of the City of Los Angeles says that the buildings in L.A. are very similar to those in Taiwan, which were made of steel and cement. He had helped with reconstructions after the L.A. earthquake of 1994. He brought here an instrument called high-pressured automatic injection of epoxy adhesive this time, which can inject 500 cubic inches of epoxy adhesive in one hour. It is highly effective in mending cracks smaller than 1 centimeter. This team of volunteers will help with repairing the buildings in Pu-Li, and make demonstrations for local engineers.