News For November 7, 2010

Praises to God in spite of the flood

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings to you all in the name of the Most High God!

Contrary to last Sunday, when over 600 brothers and sisters met to worship the most High God, this morning, there were only 55. The first Scripture reading chosen by our reader was Psalms 47. While we were reading together, my eyes and mind were glued on verse 6, which says: “Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.” Praise is something that we need to do at all times.

They were all happy for the fact that this Hurricane was not like Jeanne (2004), Hanna (2008) and Ike (2008), when we had up to 12 feet of water in some areas. In those days we had thousands of people who died. A huge number of homes were destroyed and the damages in other areas was untold. Furthermore, the water stayed around for many days, and in some area for weeks. The people praised God for sparing us from the worst.

It all started with mild rain, which stopped around 1 PM in Gonaives. We even saw the sun for a few short minutes. Then around three PM, the rain started again. This time it was heavy rain. It was a fearful rain. Contrary to the previous time, the rain had with it strong wind. After three hours of rain I said to myself, we might get a flood, but I was still hopeful. People around me were losing hope of being spared from another flood.

By this time people came from all over our neigborhood taking refuge either at my home or at the campus of Living Water. Again, they were very fearful. When the rain stop around 9 PM and we still did not see outside flooding, we thought we were safe from flood.

This changed by midnight. We were flooded again. At that time my wife was sleeping. The noise from a few young guys in my neighborhood woke Gine up. I had to make an excuse for the noise in ana effort to conseal what was going on.

When the water came close to the place where we installed our batteries, my oldest son, Mark, came to me asking me to unplug the batteries and moved them upstairs, I had to tell him that doing that would send a message to Mom that we don’t want her to have. So we waited to see, and praise God, we did not have to move the batteries. We were spared from the worst. When I was sure the water was not going higher, I gave my wife a watered down version of what had happened. She was OK with it. Then she praised God for sparing us from the worst.

When we are praising God we didn’t minimize what had happened. Among those who are praising God were brothers and sisters who lost items from their small businesses. People lost crops. The few earthly belonging of some were still under water while they were praising God. People’s home are damaged. Bridges washed away. They knew that many diseases like Malaria and Typhoïd are going to resurface with strength.  Their fear that cholera could be potentially more dangerous was evident. Yet we praised God.

Some schools cannot tell when they are going to reopen because classrooms and school furniture are still under water. Some people may not be able to go back to their home to live life as usual before the end of this week and maybe the next. Some may have to move.

Because things were already bad before the hurricane, now they became worse. Food is already an issue for many. In spite of that, we praise God. The two most urgent needs are food and medical attention. These two problems existed before the hurricane, but it is worse now. In the last few days, since the outbreak of cholera, our health clinic insufficiency has become clear.

We would praise God for medical teams to come to help people. So you may be asking what can you do to help.  I hope you can see the needs for intervention in health care, among other things.

I have included several pictures. The first two were taken on the campus of Living Water. They may not be the best because they were taken at night. The third was taken in the street close to Living Water. The fourth is the home of Robin, my brother-in-law and a deacon at Living Water. The last two were taken at Trousable, the area where I, Salonique, grew up.

Thanks for your prayers. We need them as we are thinking about what we need to do in times like this.

In Christ,

Salonique Adolphe

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.” … “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple, his hands will also complete it.” (Zech 4:6, 9)

website : www.livingwaterchristianmission.org
Phone : 011 – 509 – 3767 – 5951