Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Spring 2013 | Page 16
The
Next
Disaster:
Are
You
Ready?
Wheaton’s new
Humanitarian Disaster
Institute equips and
empowers churches
and communities
to prepare for
the worst and recover
with resilience.
by Katherine Halberstadt Anderson ’90
14 s p r i n g 2 0 1 3
1
2
I
n Tokyo, many things appear normal, but internally we are
not the same,” says Martha Foxwell Berg ’70, who along with
her husband, Gaius ’69, leads Kurume Bible Fellowship, an
international church in Japan.
In the days and weeks after the disaster of March 11, the Bergs went to bed with clothing
immediately available “suitable to run and live in for several weeks if necessary.” To this
day the couple carries water when they travel by train and keeps an “earthquake bag”
ready with supplies. “After that day, life was never quite the same. We began living with
the awareness that everything could radically change in a moment and that each day is
a gift,” Martha says.
“
Many people and entire congregations around the world live with
a post-disaster mentality after catastrophic events such as the recent
ones in Japan, Haiti, the Gulf Coast, and the Jersey Shore.
Local calamities—tornadoes, fires, and acts of violence—change
lives and test the responsiveness of the church every day. As we
watch the news and send aid, it’s difficult not to wonder: What can
my family and church do to be prepared for an emergency? Am I doing all
I can to help those who are suffering?
Dr. Jamie Aten, Dr. Arthur P. Rech and Mrs. Jean May Rech
Associate Professor of Psychology, has devoted his career to helping
answer these questions. After living through Hurricane Katrina and
studying the response of the local and national church, Dr. Aten
came to Wheaton College and founded the Humanitarian Disaster
Institute (HDI), the first Christian academic disaster research center
in the nation.
Dr. Aten and Dr. David Boan, co-director of the Institute and
associate professor of psychology, have formed a growing coalition
of faculty and students who travel, listen, research, write, and