NASTIA's STORY
By Elhadi Mohamed, LWR Indonesia Representative
Nias, Indonesia — Nastia Gulo, a 35 year old mother of six, lost her husband in 2002. Nastia continued to work on the family farm, where she grew rice and rubber trees and raised pigs. To supplement her income, she also worked as a laborer on a nearby Copra, or coconut, tree plantation.
Nastia enjoyed relatively good income due to her hard work, earning more than enough to meet the basic needs of her household.
Life was normal and getting easier for Nastia as her children grew and were able to help out on the farm. She enjoyed some leisure time, visiting her neighbors and friends in the evening after returning from work at the rice field or the tree plantations.
December 26, 2004 totally changed her life.
The great tsunami took three of her children. The house was damaged beyond repair, and the pig farm destroyed. The waves took all the pigs to the sea. The rice farm was flooded with salt water. Nastia stood there, hours after the crisis, looking to the ruins, to her kids lying beside her without clothes, shelter, food or water to drink. She could only cry, and pray.
Lutheran World Relief partner Yayasan Tanggul Benkana was the first to reach this community. They constructed a communal shelter, started psychosocial counseling, and provided needed food and moral support. YTB’s focus was to bring the group together with a common identity, common objectives, common plans and actions, and YTB staff spent time organizing Nastia and her neighbors into one community, as a pre-requisite to any rehabilitation or development activities.
Nastia is in the process of rebuilding her shattered life. “Things are not easy,” she said. “The rice field is still partially covered with water, the part that I am cultivating now is hardly enough to provide for my family needs. Over and above, I have to walk now four times the distance I used to cover to reach the farm since I am living now in the barracks.
“The rubber trees are all gone, I have to walk now for a very long distance to work on other people’s plantations as a laborer. And because we all moved here, the monkeys are attacking the Copra trees all the time, so we can get no harvest there, at all.”
When asked how she’s managing now, Nastia responds, “Well, YTB provided us with a lot of support from the beginning, they met our basic needs of shelter, food, water; they tried to comfort us by regularly meeting with us and asking us to talk about our experience and the need to be one big family. We feel much better now, we spend a lot of time together, and we are also supported to establish some small businesses and we appreciate that very much.”
As for the future, Nastia hopes to re-establish her previous livelihood. She looks forward to taking care of her children’s education and watching them grow up healthy and happy, and also to saving some resources for another rainy day -- although it is her hope that this will not happen again -- and to be able to help others as well.
LWR is supporting YTB and its implementing partners, through the global aid alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT-International).
Nastia with her son and daughter
WHO IS LWR? Lutheran World Relief, an international nonprofit organization, works to end poverty and injustice by empowering some of the world's most impoverished communities to help themselves. With partners in 35 countries, LWR seeks to promote sustainable development with justice and dignity by helping communities bring about change for healthy, safe and secure lives; engage in Fair Trade; promote peace and reconciliation; and respond to emergencies. LWR is headquartered in Baltimore, Md. and has worked in international development and relief since 1945.
Lutheran World Relief is a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), individuals and parish groups in international relief, development, advocacy and social responsibility.
For more information contact Emily Sollie at esollie@lwr.org or 410-230-2802.
