{"id":8676,"date":"2010-07-21T08:39:24","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T07:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=8676"},"modified":"2014-06-27T13:16:40","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T13:16:40","slug":"%e2%80%9cwater-took-everything%e2%80%9d-hungarian-devotees-help-in-flooded-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=8676","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWater Took Everything\u201d: Hungarian Devotees Help in Flooded Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ISKCON News Staff<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Submited by bh. Tibor (Swiderski Tibor)<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Since the beginning of June unusual flooding caused major problems in Northeastern Hungary. Due to constant rain, several swollen streams turned agricultural fields, village streets, courtyards, parks, playgrounds into rivers, lakes and seas. Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in a hurry and those who stayed behind faced a shortage of drinking water and food without any electricity.<\/p>\n

Apart from the government several non-governmental organizations came to rescue.<\/p>\n

Since 8 June members of the Hungarian Society for Krishna Consciousness distributed a thousand plates of free food in the flooded area. Cooperating with the local disaster recovery group they searched the most affected village in the area where people did not have any supply at the time. In Felsozsolca, a village of 7000 inhabitants, 1800 of 2200 homes got destroyed. \u201ePeople were devastated, saying that the flooding did more damage to their village than World War II.\u201d \u2013 concludes Gandharvika Prema Dasi, coordinator of the Hungarian Food For Life Foundation. Water took their vegetables, grain harvest, animals, furniture, other belongings and 180 houses collapsed. They lost almost everything. Cars could not move on the streets covered with water which became more and more infected by time in the summer heat. There was no drinking water, no gas, no electricity, therefore no connection with the outside world.<\/p>\n

\u201eWe wanted to help\u201d \u2013 she continues. \u201cEach day we started to cook at 2.30 am in our temple in Budapest, then transported food to the flooded areas by trucks. We distributed hot meals to mainly private houses, but also to temporary shelters, some of which were covered by water up to one\u2019s chest and therefore approachable only by boat. We had a big truck that could move in the water and driving from street to street we carried food, water, and disinfectants to people. Civil defense, firemen, soldiers and civilians worked hard together. Even after 7 days we found houses where people have not gotten any help since floods had begun.\u201d <\/p>\n

Video: http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&hl=hu&v=M-vHcU6YYOs<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

\u201ePeople are in need of mental support\u201d \u2013 said the local psychologist. \u201eWe are especially grateful to the Hare Krishnas to come because they can give hope, faith, spiritual strength to survive these unfortunate times. They are symbols of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hot meals were real help for the flood victims.\u201d \u2013 Bhakta Emil says. He also took part in the organization\u2019s food relief program in Haiti after the earthquakes. \u201ePeople had no opportunity to cook so they got life-saving support at times of disaster. By the way only devotees know how much spiritual benefit they gained from taking food that was offered to God. People loved devotees, they were excitedly waiting for them. They were so grateful that they wanted to share their few belongings with them left after the floods in return: some drink or some cleaning supplies. It was all they had.\u201d<\/p>\n

The special effort of thirty devotees taking part in the project was greatly appreciated by the Hungarian government as well.
\n\u201eHow this mission helped my spiritual advancement? \u2013 Bhakta Emil says. \u201eIt was the nicest service I have ever gotten from the Lord. It was very pleasing to see how people appreciate devotees and prasadam.<\/p>\n

Hare Krishna!
\nyour servant,
\nbh. Tibor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ISKCON News Staff<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in a hurry and those who stayed behind faced a shortage of drinking water and food without any electricity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12855,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8676\/revisions\/12855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}