PADANG, Indonesia – Lenny was in the kitchen of her restaurant the day the ground shook.

“The building began to shake. At first, I thought it was an airplane that had crashed nearby. And then, in a matter of seconds, my kitchen was on fire,” she said.

“I ran out of the building screaming, ‘God help me! God help me!’ “

Almost a month after a deadly earthquake struck Indonesia’s West Sumatra province killing over a thousand people and leaving more than half a million people homeless, victims like Lenny and countless others are now working around the clock to help other survivors.

“So many people here are still suffering. I can’t bear to see others suffer.  So I help by cooking, preparing meals for them,” she said.

She helped setup this makeshift relief tent next to her badly damaged church.

Recently, Operation Blessing partnered with several churches in the area to deliver much needed relief supplies to some of the hard-to-reach areas of the disaster zone—areas accessible only by motorcycle or by walking.

“That’s why I am so glad that Operation Blessing is here today. Nobody else wanted to come up here since this village is very difficult to get to.  It means a lot to us that you are here,” said Karim, the village leader.

Local volunteers joined the Operation Blessing team to deliver food and water.  Several Operation Blessing doctors were also on hand.

For Lenny and others who are reaching out to help fellow survivors, the aid they received gives them the strength and courage to move on.

“We’ve all lost so much but I know something good will come out of this tragedy,” Lenny said.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Asia, Disaster, Earthquake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.