Dear friends of UMN,  

Most or all of you will know that after a several-month lull, the new South Asian wave of COVID has hit Nepal with devastating impact.  There are on average fifty confirmed deaths per day, but the much higher observed rate of cremations suggests an even worse actual toll.  Much of the country is now again under lockdown, and hospitals are being overwhelmed with COVID cases.  

We are appealing to our supporters around the world to help us meet this new surge.  Last year, with your help, we saved UMN’s hospitals from the crash in funding that followed the first lockdown.  Now we need your help to respond to the current crisis, both through the mission hospitals in Tansen and Okhaldhunga and in the districts where we do community development work.  

We will use the funds we raise to respond to whichever COVID-related need is greatest – and right now our primary need is oxygen.  

The mission hospitals already each have their own oxygen plant, but in a surge of this scale, we need additional oxygen capacity to treat more COVID patients.  In our other working districts, many of the local governments need lifesaving oxygen equipment for their clinics and hospitals.  We want to support them in this to save as many lives as possible.  

We are so grateful to anyone who is able to donate to UMN’s work during this crisis.  Regardless, the most important help we can all give is through prayer.  Please take the time to intercede for the people of Nepal: for an early end to this wave, for protection for frontline workers trying to keep COVID patients alive, and for the government to make wise choices in hard situations.  

Pray for healing for the UMN staff who have contracted COVID-19, and for protection for those who have not.  Pray for vaccines to become available and to be taken up widely by the people of Nepal, so that we do not continue to face waves like this for years to come.  

Thank you for standing with us in prayer through this terrible pandemic.  We say together to the Lord, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.”