And the Rains came pouring down….

What happens when you get 60 inches of rain in 9 days? You get earth that doesn’t want to hold any more water. You get rivers that become raging torrents of destruction. You get ruined crops, flooded homes, villages whose roads are cut off, peoples homes completely destroyed, mudslides, death. This was the scene in October. The area around San Julian was one of the areas hit hardest because it sits low, surrounded by mountains, and has rivers that run through it. The city itself had some damage…due to leaking homes, and water seeping up through floors. But, just at the edge of town, the damage became much greater. With whole homes being swept away, and occupants barely escaping with their lives. Some villages were cut off from transportation. In one of those villages, Agua Shuka, lives Pastor Eduardo, a dear friend of ours. He lives and works on the premises of his church. We wanted to find out how they were doing, so we and the Pursleys decided to trek out there. We got across the river, partly on the footbridge, and partly on tree branches…slogged through deep mud, waded the entire way in a river that once was the road. It took us about an hour. Once there, we found that Pastor Eduardo was housing over 150 people in his church, day and night. These were people whose houses had been flooded, or completely wiped out. They were cooking for them in open fires, trying to cloth them, the people were sleeping on the floor, without mattresses. Many were suffering with fungus on their feet from the nasty mud and water they were living in. We asked how we could most help them. He told us: food, clothes and medicene for their fungus. We and the Pursley’s pooled our money and purchased what food that we could in San Salvador, and then went back in, on foot, carrying the food. During this time, we were tremendously blessed by our church in San Salvador. The Union Church put out a request for food, clothes and blankets to be donated in order for us to distribute them here in San Julian. We were truly blown away by the kindness and generosity of the church. We filled and re-filled our van with the food and clothing. And then, one of the gentlemen in the church who has a factory that produces clothing, decided to produce 500 blankets to be donated. WOW!! We took about 250 of those blankets and gave them out to the neediest families we could find. Those people were so excited to receive those great blankets to keep them warm at night. We were blessed to be able to be a blessing. We also had a bridge en route to San Salvador wiped out…so traffic can be very slow going that direction, as they have diverted traffic to the other side of the highway where the bridge is still in tact. Another bridge was compromised, and unusable just down the road from that one. Although there were no deaths in San Julian, there were many deaths from mudslides and flooding rivers around the country. Here, and around the country, many are still trying to put their lives back together. Our church in Vancouver Washington raised over $2,000 so we can help some of these families rebuild their homes and lives. We are so thankful for these gifts to aid us in ministering to the needy here. We have also seen many people here in El Salvador come to the aid of their fellow countrymen. We see people that have lost so much, just facing each day with determination and strength.