Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

As Venezuela grap­ples with the af­ter­math of Wednes­day’s dev­as­tat­ing earth­quakes, a Venezue­lan pas­tor in Trinidad is ral­ly­ing sup­port for sur­vivors, urg­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to do­nate food, med­i­cine and oth­er es­sen­tial sup­plies to help fam­i­lies who have lost every­thing.

Pas­tor Glen­der Ram­s­ingh, at­tached to Al­pha Min­istries’ Beau­ti­ful Tem­ple in Pe­nal, hopes to send a ship­ment of re­lief sup­plies to Venezuela next week and is call­ing on the pub­lic to do­nate med­i­cine, food and oth­er es­sen­tial items.

While Ram­s­ingh spoke in Span­ish, the in­ter­view was trans­lat­ed through a mo­bile trans­la­tion ap­pli­ca­tion.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Ram­s­ingh said, “We want to make this call so that they can join us and bring their do­na­tions, which will be sent to Venezuela as soon as pos­si­ble since Venezuela is re­al­ly go­ing through a hard time be­cause of this earth­quake.”

Ram­s­ingh said watch­ing im­ages of col­lapsed build­ings, sur­vivors be­ing pulled from the rub­ble, griev­ing fam­i­lies who lost their homes and loved ones, had been heart­break­ing.

While none of his fam­i­ly was di­rect­ly im­pact­ed, he said mem­bers of his con­gre­ga­tion have fam­i­lies who have been af­fect­ed by the earth­quake.

“Some peo­ple lost their lives, but we are pray­ing that God takes con­trol of our coun­try. We are pray­ing that God’s hand ex­tends over Venezuela and to­day more than ever we have to be unit­ed, unit­ed as a fam­i­ly, as broth­ers.”

He added, “The Bible says that we are one in Christ, so I make the call to the com­mu­ni­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, join us in this union, unit­ed by Venezuela. Your con­tri­bu­tion is very im­por­tant; your help is very im­por­tant. I be­lieve that lit­tle by lit­tle we can do some­thing.”

He said a pas­tor liv­ing in one of the earth­quake-torn com­mu­ni­ties lost his son, and the feed­back they have been re­ceiv­ing from their coun­try­men is that they need help.

“They are ask­ing for help. They are ask­ing for sup­port, and we want to make the call to all those or­gan­i­sa­tions that can con­tribute with some­thing, and we will be wait­ing for you here.”

Echo­ing a sim­i­lar ap­peal, Pas­tor Corey George ex­plained that Al­pha Min­istries, Beau­ti­ful Tem­ple has sev­er­al branch­es, but in Feb­ru­ary it opened a Span­ish-speak­ing church to serve the His­pan­ic com­mu­ni­ty.

George ap­pealed to the pub­lic to do­nate med­i­cine, non-per­ish­able foods and oth­er es­sen­tial items to sup­port the re­lief ef­fort.

“We may be well to­day, but we need help of to­mor­row. So, once you have that op­por­tu­ni­ty and the means to do so, we should help where help is need­ed.”

He said do­na­tions can be dropped off at Al­pha Min­istries at Fazal Ave or a busi­ness place op­po­site Unique Fur­ni­ture Store at Pe­nal Junc­tion from 8 am to 4 pm, from Mon­day to Fri­day.

In­ter­est­ed per­sons can al­so con­tact the church at 289-9028 or 288-3000.