Upper Room offers spiritual aids to tsunami victims

United Methodist News Service
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—The Upper Room, a United Methodist ministry that provides spiritual resources to people around the world, is focusing on emotional needs of tsunami survivors.
The Upper Room, is “seeking the best ways that we here can support our colleagues there (in the Indian Ocean area) to respond to the emotional and spiritual needs of their people and support the efforts of their churches,” said the Rev. Stephen Bryant, editor and publisher.
The Upper Room, a unit of the General Board of Discipleship, meets spiritual needs through devotional magazines, books and printed resources. Its flagship devotional guide, The Upper Room, is published worldwide in 73 editions and 44 languages.
When tsunamis hit more than a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean Dec. 26, Upper Room officials immediately tried to contact their editors and partners in the affected areas, Bryant said.
“It took several days, but we eventually heard from all of them about their well-being and the conditions of their countries,” he said.
The Upper Room has editions and partners serving people in nearly all of the Indian Ocean areas affected by the tsunami, including Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.
In each of the affected countries, editors of regional editions are focusing on the basic survival needs of the people.
“At the same time, we are talking with them about the next layer of relief—emotional and spiritual support for those traumatized by their severe losses,” said Bryant, a clergy member of the Southwest Texas Conference. “The spiritual healing, along with the physical reconstruction, will be the long-term ministry that the Upper Room in those areas must help support.”
Immediately after the tsunami hit and news of the devastation crossed the globe, the Upper Room hosted a public prayer service in Nashville. Upper Room staff prayed for colleagues, those killed, survivors and those providing rescue and relief. The prayer service is posted at www.gbod.org.
Church leaders in Sri Lanka want a small booklet of scripture and prayers to help with pastoral care and trauma efforts, Bryant said.
“We are making such a booklet available and helping them locally print a large quantity,” he said. “Our contacts have also told us they need teams of people trained in dealing with trauma to train others, an aspect of the relief effort that they say has been missing thus far.”
In other areas, Upper Room editors are considering larger-than-usual print runs of The Upper Room in their languages for wider distribution to those in need. Each of these editions will need additional support, Bryant said.