Fun and then Flood

Being a Southern Baptist missionary has its perks. One of the biggest is our annual mission meeting when all us get together for spiritual refreshment, informative meetings, sharing ideas, good fellowship, and delicious food. From June 20 to June 27, our missionary colleagues from several Asian countries gathered in Thailand. Since this was our first trip to another Asian country, we added three days of vacation to allow time for shopping and visiting the tourist sites in Bangkok. We toured the coast, visited palaces, and rode elephants.

After one elephant show, Hannah was having her picture taken next to an enormous, 10 foot tall elephant, when suddenly he wrapped his long trunk around Hannah and hoisted her 8 feet into the air with Hannah holding on for dear life. Hannah wasn’t sure to scream for fear or for excitement. Turns out the elephant does this to just about everyone who has a picture taken with him. Once we figured that out, Martha took her turn being hoisted into the air by the same elephant.



Our fun in Thailand was lessened when, on our third day there, we received news that Iloilo had been hit hard by a typhoon and that Iloilo City was experiencing its worst flooding in history. Film clips on CNN news showed people in Iloilo struggling to escape swirling currents of rising water that was washing away homes. At least a hundred people were reported drowned. We wanted so much to be there to help our brothers and sisters in the Lord, but felt helpless to do anything but pray.

We arrived from Thailand on Monday night and, as we drove home from the airport, we could see damaged homes and piles of trash along the muddy streets. Yesterday, Hannah and I visited a couple of our church leaders who were in one of the hardest hit areas. They told frightening stories of rushing water and narrow escapes. Even though Pastor Lito had a second floor room, he lost nearly all his household goods because he was too busy rescuing neighbors to take time to transfer his things to the second floor. “Well,” he said, “things can be replaced but lives cannot.”

I am hoping to secure some disaster relief funds to help those with the greatest needs. The place we are staying in, as well as the house we will be moving into next week, are in higher portions of the city and were not harmed by the flood. We will spend some time during the next several days building book shelves, moving stuff, and getting settled into the house. We will also resume our church leadership training next week. However, please pray for so many who have lost homes, livelihood, and belongings due to the flood. Major bridges have been washed out making travel difficult between towns. As always, thanks for being our partners in ministry.