Last Sunday I woke up to texts from my friends saying the river had overflowed and they had to evacuate in the middle of the night.
When I walked out my back gate and down just one block, this is what I saw...
You can see how close to our house the river reached.
People were rescuing their pigs from homes that had flooded to the top. I heard estimates that this flood caused 10,000 families, including 36, 000 dependents to evacuate. Praise God that I did not hear any reports of lives lost.
Emi and Edgar's family had left their house at 3 am. The whole community was sleeping on this covered court trying to get shelter from the constant rain. That suitcase there is a bunch of blankets and towels that I brought to share.
Prior to this picture they had come to our house to make breakfast. With no cooking pots and no dry firewood, no one could even make food.
Here's the evacuees on the covered court near our house. We know many of these people from the community and from our local church.
Here's the street on the way to Emi's house. Rescue workers from the city were doing a great job searching for people, but they did not find any. Some men were camping out in the 2nd floor of their houses to protect their things from looters. Sadly many people did become victims not only of the destruction of the flood but from those who stole from them.
I found my friends, Weng-Weng, Ruen and Emi....very cold and tired and hungry. They walked around with me so nothing would happen to me while I was trailing through the flood to take pictures and investigate.
Thankfully, our church opened up the 2nd floor of our new community transformation center. I believe it was about 160 families who took refuge here for most of last week, and more than 250 ate meals provided by the church. Elijah is in white there, helping me and Emi do an outreach to the kids.
By God's providence, 2 boxes that had been shipped in November reached us at just the right time. Inside were tons of kids' clothes! What a blessing to the kids who had no dry clothes, and who also lost their clothes in the flood. What a joy to see their delight in getting something "new" that day.
The river finally did go down this week, and the sun came out a few times. Whenever I heard that hard rain in the night, I pray that the river will stay down. Many were without power until just last night, and many people lost their possessions.
Here's Luke watching Emi distribute the clothes that arrived at the perfect time. Thank you, Lord! AND to our supporter and her neighbors who donated these things and shipped them!!
We praise God that despite the disaster, or perhaps because of it, 27 people responded to an invitation to receive Christ on Sunday at church. The service was full to the back as people turned to find hope in Jesus. Pray for us, for our church and the ministry to the many people who are in need, and praise God for His many blessings in the midst of the floods.
