By Peter Bugden
BRISBANE man Chris Ng is like a “lone ranger” as he roams from one country to another bringing aid to the poorest of the poor.
When he is moved by the tears and pain of people suffering because of war, hunger, disease and poverty, he doesn’t reach into his pocket to give money to an aid agency that will do something about it.
He hops on a plane and takes his money directly to the people in need – and often he stays with them.
So far, he’s been to East Timor, India, Burma, Zambia and, most recently, Iraq.
It’s not just his own money he gives – he has a band of like-minded friends who give generously to fund his outreaches.
“I retired when I was 55 so I’ve been doing this full-time now (since then),” Chris, a staunch Catholic, said.
“Before I used to go for a few months a year (but), since I retired, I’m doing it full-time.”
Chris first ascertains the need by talking to the people on the ground where he is intending to offer help, then he and his friends raise the necessary funds.
Once that is achieved, Chris heads off to do whatever he can.
He said he mostly knew before leaving Australia what project he was going to tackle, and he usually works with nuns.
“I’ve already asked them what are their needs so when we go there we basically start working on a project,” he said.
It was a different story with his latest mission, in Iraq.
“Iraq was my last destination, after seeing how bad it is, how desperate it is,” Chris said.
“I went seeing what I could do there.”
That was late last year, when Chris had a stint volunteering in a refugee camp in Erbil, Kurdistan, among thousands of Iraqi Christians who had fled from Islamic State militants.
He was there for 15 days – as long as the authorities would allow him to stay.
When he left for Iraq, he was particularly happy with his group’s fundraising efforts because a friend’s mother had given him US$25,000.
“I thought ‘Wow! That was really, totally unexpected’.
“I thought, ‘Wow! I could do much more’. So we spent over $30,000 in Iraq to provide immediate help.
“We managed to provide a lot of medicine for these people in the camps.”
As a volunteer working with Fr Douglas Bazi and another priest, Chris’ main task “was to make sure the people were healthy”.
“I found there’s a lot of problems with the (refugees’) skin because they weren’t eating fruit,” he said.
“So we got in truckloads – 1.5 tonnes – of apples (and) we got truckloads of watermelons.”
Chris and his friends also provided two pullovers for each child in the camp, and a gas cylinder for every family.
“So now they all can cook,” he said.
A major problem, as expected, was emotional trauma.
“When you are emotionally traumatised it creates a physical sickness,” Chris said.
“You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you get pains everywhere, your blood pressure goes up, you have such a headache – all these things.
“And (then) there were (the) skin problems.
“Sleeping in the tents, they’ve got a lot of feet problems, because it’s very dry there.
“When I was there it was 40 degrees. It’s very, very dry and their skin starts to crack, their feet start to crack, and they get infected.
“And the hands are the same – they start to crack.”
Chris used his first-aid training to help with that problem.
He and his friends were also able to brighten the days of the children in the camp.
“Fr Danny told me, ‘You know, the kids here are very, very bored. They don’t know what to do. They don’t have toys’,” he said.
“So I said, ‘Okay, let’s go to the supermarket, and you can buy all the toys you want. You have US$1000.
“He didn’t manage it. He managed to buy only $700.”
This was just one small way of helping the children with the trauma they were suffering.
Asked why he did this kind of work, Chris said: “I feel, they need help, and I can offer that help. I can give.
“I get a lot of happiness out it – joy out of it.
“Just looking at them when you … bandage someone up, give them some food, buy them some lunch, you can see their smile.
“That’s good enough; they don’t have to say thank you. You know that they’re very happy with it.
“It gives you satisfaction.
“I mean, I don’t expect anything in return for what I do for them.
“It’s my own personal pursuit, to give happiness to people – to give them a bit of joy in their life.
“They’ve gone through so much hardship and, suddenly you just give a bit of joy, they can always think back at this little thing you give them then.
“It brings me enormous happiness.”
Chris said the root of that happiness was in the Christian faith.
“It says in the Bible, look after the poor, the sick, the helpless. So you just try to do your bit,” he said.
“I think there is so much of suffering. Everywhere there is suffering, suffering, suffering.
“You don’t see happiness in camps.”
As a Christian, Chris feels called to respond to that.
“You have to do your part – not just obey the law of Jesus and pray to Him every Sunday,” he said.
“Jesus wants you to be more – to go and help people, help the poor.
“There’s so many things (we) can do.
“There’s so many homeless centres, (for instance). (We) can buy a bag of gifts or provisions and just bring them there.
“Just ring them up, see what they want.
“If they say they want 100 blankets just bring two blankets, if you can’t afford 100 – just a small thing.”
Apart from reaching out abroad, abortion is another issue Chris feels strongly about.
“Any time there is an opportunity to talk to people about abortion I speak to them,” he said.
In the meantime, Chris is hoping to return to Iraq in the next couple of months … with a little help from his friends.
