Believers Help Couple After Deadly Fire

GFA Reports from the Field

Chapman and his wife, Shavon, had lost everything. Their home had gone up in flames, the fire consuming everything inside. The couple barely managed to escape. Chapman’s 80-year-old mother wasn’t so fortunate. The fire spread too fast for her to reach safety, and she passed away.

A Second Tragedy

When GFA World pastor Birke heard of the fire, he and other believers quickly gathered supplies and donations. — Chapman, pictured left, happily receives one of the gas cylinders donated to provide cooking fuel.

By the time the flames abated, all that was left of Chapman and Shavon’s home was the charred frame. But this wasn’t their original home: It had been a replacement.

Several years prior, a devastating earthquake had obliterated the couple’s initial home. Back then, the local authorities, in tandem with other organizations, had provided both funds and supplies to rebuild it.

But now that home was gone, much like their first home. Perhaps despair swallowed Chapman and Shavon as they looked at the remnants of their second home. The couple had lost everything in the fire, even the money loaned to Chapman to farm pigs, never to be recovered. But the loss of his possessions and money couldn’t compare with the loss of Chapman’s mother.

Never Alone

However, Chapman and Shavon were not alone. They were members of a church led by Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastor Birke, and when the pastor heard of the fire, he and other believers quickly gathered supplies and donations.

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Learn more about the GFA World national missionaries who carry a burning desire for people to know the redemptive fatherly love of God. Through their prayers, dedication and sacrificial love, thousands of men and women have found new life in Christ.

Learn more by reading this GFA World Special Report: National Workers: Unstoppable Compassion Force