I Love a Rainy Night

Rainy Nights. The cool breeze and the soothing sound of rain drops on the roof normally sends me to sleep. The sound of rain is a welcomed sound in our house. Living without clean water is hard and something that our family has become accustomed to. We have safe drinking water Praise God but we do not have access to clean water to bathe in. Our family has come to depend on the rain! Typically at the sound of rain there are screams of joy heard throughout the house. Whatever we were working on comes to a complete stop and everyone runs to their station to help collect the rain water. Once we have filled all of our buckets and garbage cans we all change into our swimsuits to bathe.

Last night around 1:00am the rain started to fall. Taylor and I both awoke to the sound. Quickly Taylor ran outside to position our buckets to collect the rain. We both dozed back off to sleep happily knowing that in a few hours when we awoke once again we would have plenty of water for awhile. Joyously we went about our morning praising God for hearing our prayers and for providing the rain for our pueblo.

That joy soon ended when we received word of the utter disaster some nearby pueblos were in. The rain that was a godsend for us destroyed houses, hopes, dreams, and lives of others.

The zone of Tres Unidos is where the single men missionaries have been living over the past three years. Tres Unidos and their alturas, mountain villages, were hit hard by the rainstorm. We were told that the rains caused mudslides in the upper pueblos and traveled down the mountain. At the same time the river next to Tres Unidos grew and swelled beyond the banks. The river swept through town in the middle of the night taking houses, animals and belongings along with it. What it left behind was mud and tears. The community is grieving the loss of things and hope. But praise the Lord no one lost their life there.

Unfortunately that was not the case for many other communities. The community of Paraíso suffered a lot including the loss of a family of five. It is believed that over the next few days more people will be found dead or severely injured.

Currently no one is able to reach any of the communities beyond Tres Unidos due to the fact that both bridges were washed out. The president sent in the military today to rebuild the bridges and to search for the deceased. The hope is one of the bridges will be complete tomorrow so the missionaries can go in and access what is needed in each of the pueblos.

What do the people need right now?
 Prayers! They lost everything. They have lost their hope amongst all of their possessions. 

Food and clean drinking water. Taylor and the Carmody family spent the day bringing in food and clean drinking water to everyone that needed it. Tomorrow they will be returning to bring in more food and drinking water. They will also be taking the time to pray with the people and remind them that God is there with them amongst their sorrow.

What will the people need over the next few weeks?

More Prayers! It will take time to heal from this and to rebuild. They will need many prayers to help them see the good in all the sorrow and also to help them see the need of everyone around them.

Medical Supplies and medicine will be needed over the coming weeks. There is a good chance that the people will get sick from contaminated water. Many people have outhouses and when the water rushes through town it takes the sewage with it contaminating everything. 

Clothing, shoes, and school supplies. Families lost all of their possessions. We will be bringing in all of the clothing that our friends from Holy Family Parish gave us. This will help many people but there is a chance it will not be enough.

Bibles. We will be bringing in Bibles again since many people lost their Bible.

A new church. Unfortunately the church in Tres Unidos was damaged beyond repair. The mudslides took out one of the walls supporting the church. Since then the church has been slowly collapsing all day. We will need to take down the church for the safety of the community.

Cleaning out the church. 

Please consider donating to help with the flood relief for these communities.

Please pray for Taylor as he helps with the disaster relief efforts. Please pray that God will protect him from any illnesses that he might come in contact with.
~ Katie