• Why are children like this suffering? Tuesday, September 11, 2007 - 8:12 pm [1]

Tonga RPCV Amber Johnson in Pakistan with World Vision



Johnson, a former Warrensburg resident, is a communications director for World Vision. The faith-based relief group, based in the Seattle area, has provided food, shelter and comfort to thousands of victims of the worst earthquake in Pakistan's history.

Tonga RPCV Amber Johnson in Pakistan with World Vision

A vision for the world: Desire to help draws Warrensburg native to Pakistan with aid group

Jan 27, 2005

Herald & Review, Decatur, Ill.

Jan. 27--Although she is inside a tent in a mummy sleeping bag made to withstand subzero temperatures, Amber Johnson is having trouble getting warm.

But her thoughts are with those who are suffering far more: the earthquake victims who are living nearby. She has traveled to the rugged Himalaya Mountain region, at the Pakistan-India border, because of them.

"I'm having a hard time imagining having children and not being able to keep them warm," said Johnson, 30, in a phone interview from a displaced persons camp in Balakot, Pakistan.

Johnson, a former Warrensburg resident, is a communications director for World Vision. The faith-based relief group, based in the Seattle area, has provided food, shelter and comfort to thousands of victims of the worst earthquake in Pakistan's history.

Balakot was the closest city to the epicenter of the Oct. 8 quake, which killed 87,000 people and rendered more than 2 million homeless.

Johnson said almost everything in Balakot, which had 30,000 residents, was destroyed or damaged beyond repair.

"Everywhere you look, there is broken concrete, twisted metal rods, piles of bricks," she said. "The only buildings standing are temporary shelters."

Johnson has been visiting some of the 15 child centers World Vision has established in the region to allow children to escape from the rubble of their lives and laugh, play and sing.

"Almost every child has lost a sibling or cousin when the schools collapsed," Johnson said. "When you talk to them, a look comes over their eyes. You can see they are still hurting."

A 9-year-old girl named Nimra was afraid to leave home after her school was damaged, and nearly 300 girls were killed in the collapse of a high school. After Nimra attended a World Vision center, where she played with her friends, she regained the confidence to return to school.

"When they are home, they see destruction and sadness," Johnson said. "They need to have a place to play."

Johnson said she taught some of the children how to play the running game called duck, duck, goose.

"We were laughing so hard we couldn't run in circles," Johnson said. "They were really having a great time."

Johnson, a 1993 graduate of Warrensburg-Latham High School, enjoys helping people throughout the world. She took a leave from her job at World Vision to serve two years with the Peace Corps in Tonga, a small South Pacific nation.

Her mother, Peggy Anderson, said Johnson has always been a compassionate person.

"She's always been for the underdog," Anderson said. "She was always the one, if someone got their feelings hurt, she was the one patting them on the back and talking to them."

While she has remained true to her younger self regarding compassion, Johnson has drifted a long way from her early notions about her place in the world.

"When she was little, she told us she was never going to leave home," Anderson recalled. "I never dreamed that a child of mine would go that far away and do what she's doing. Everybody in the family is very proud of her."

Huey Freeman can be reached at hfreeman@herald-review.com or 421- 6985.

When this story was posted in February 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:




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