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The sign and little else of the El Rosário church building remain intact after the earthquake and aftershocks which struck El Salvador in January. The building is one of three meeting places of churches of Christ that were destroyed or badly damaged.

Earthquakes in El Salvador and India which have captured world attention bear a human face for our fellowship.

In El Salvador, three church members are known to have died and 160 families have been left homeless, according to missionaries and ministers in the region. In India news is harder to come by, and the plight of churches in the region of the quake was uncertain at press time.

Herbert Ortega, minister of the Las Colinas church, San Salvador, El Salvador, had the heart-rending task Jan. 18 of burying members of his congregation. Ortega is sponsored by the Monterey church, Lubbock, Texas.

Those killed were among the victims of the 7.6-intensity earthquake Jan. 13 in El Salvador and neighboring countries which left at least 1,000 people dead.

Three church buildings in the region were either demolished or severely damaged, Ortega reports. Two are in the towns of Santiago de Maria and San Agustin, both east of San Salvador, and the third in Las Colinas.

Response from Christian relief agencies in Central America and the United States was rapid. The James Moody Adams Clinic and Baxter Institute in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, were on the road within two days after the quake, en route to El Salvador.

Meanwhile, Healing Hands Inter-national, Nashville, Tenn.; White’s Ferry Road Church Disaster Relief, West Monroe, La.; Christian Relief Fund, Amarillo, Texas; and Manna Interna-tional, Redwood City, Calif., rallied to the need in the country.

Jon Nelson, missionary from McKinney, Texas, who recently began work in El Salvador offers encouragement to members of the local congregation and others injured in the earthquakes in the region in January.

The Monterey church, Lubbock, Texas, which sponsors three preachers in El Salvador, raised $10,000 for immediate aid to to that country. The Christian Relief Fund and Healing Hands each allocated $10,000 in emergency funds for quake relief.

Information on the quake in India remained sparse at press time, due in part to the relative remoteness of the region where the quake hit, in part to damage to communication lines and in part to a small church presence in the area. No missionaries work directly in the affected area of Gujarat State, according to Don Yelton, White’s Ferry Road relief fund coordinator.

World Bible School coordinator Jake Coppinger, Tulare, Calif., and Christian Relief Fund are raising financial help for India from churches.

According to international news sources, this quake left more than 30,000 people dead, more than one million wounded and countless homes destroyed.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION contact Jake Coppinger at (800)462-9173 or Christian Relief Fund at (800) 858-4038.