C-mail: Extended Emergency

Howdy All,

No reason to delay; time is short and its been way to long since the last update. You'll soon see why its been so long in coming.  Here's what we've been up to:

1. In early October we were privileged and honored to have three Venezuelans join our team: Arturo, Lay Yen and Noretys.  Arturo and Lay Yen were married last year in December and are both from Caracas.  Arturo has a huge heart for and many years of working with the indigenous peoples in the jungle of Venezuela. He hopes to setup a missionary training base in the jungle over the course of the next few years. Lay Yen is studying art in a public university and is excited about the jungle, but her big priority for the moment is her pregnancy and giving birth to their baby girl in early February.  Noretys, also from Caracas, has a dream to go to Africa and desires to ultimately work with Muslims and other unreached people groups.  She'll be with us on the team while raising funds, learning english and preparing to go.  Please pray for us as we are now a bi-cultural team which brings its own benefits and challenges.  We give thanks for the blessing it is to see these three Venezuelans as part of InnerCHANGE, as that has been a hope of the team in Caracas for years.  Please pray for me as team leader as I learn how to work with and mentor and be mentored by these three talented missionaries.

2. This August we hosted and ran two vacation bible schools in our neighborhood.  Each ran for a week and we had tons of kids from ages of 2-12 pass through our doors.  In the course of the two weeks, we had well over 100 children participate.  We did the standard fare of games, crafts, bible drama, a field day, and all mixed in with snacks and drink.  The VBS was a blessing to the parents and children of our hillside, even though it was an exhaustive labor of love on our part. 

3. The most exciting bit of the VBS was the participation of some volunteers from our neighborhood.  My teammate KT decided to invite a number of youth 13 or older to help out with the details and crowd control of the VBS.  It turned out to be an excellent idea as more and more youth volunteers showed up every day.  By the end of two weeks, we had a consistent group of 12 that had converted into a little youth group of sorts.  We were continuing to meet, hang out, put on events for the neighborhood and begin the slow process of discipleship.  But......

4. Venezuela has been hit HARD by the rains this year.  And when I say hard, I mean national scale emergency flooding and landslides. As it stands for today, there are over 110,000 people located in government shelters because they have either lost their homes or their homes are no longer inhabitable.  The entire country has been affected and the coastal areas have suffered the worst.  I don't honestly know how many people have died, but it has been very few thankfully, especially considering the widespread nature of the tragedy. 

5. In Caracas, the barrios are at extreme risk as they are built on steep hillsides.  Our side of the city has seen the most damage.  Our particular hillside has suffered it's fair share as well.  The effects came over a long period of months but have been dramatic none the less. As far as I know, no one has lost their life, thanks be to the grace of God!  Here's a brief rundown on the current situation:

--The community 16 de Julio (the 16^th of July) where all of the youth volunteers come from has been evacuated. Parts of the hill have fallen off (taking houses with it) while in other parts the houses are left with large cracks in their walls and foundations. 
--Two of the main roads up our hillside have been closed as they are no longer safe.  The only remaining road is in a bad shape.
--Since the only remaining road is at risk, it has been closed to all heavy transport.  This means that there has been no trash collection for at least the previous three weeks.  The other troubling factor is that there is no access to gas (everyone here buys propane tanks to cook with). 
--Last night a utility pole fell down by itself since the dirt underneath it gave way. The fallen pole blocked access up the main road until late this afternoon.
--Our team members live in three different houses/apartments.  One of them is in a section of the hill that is in high risk and the other two are currently ok (actually just at "risk" instead of "high risk").  Our teammate who lives in the structure in high risk is currently on vacation, thankfully.
 --The attached photos give an idea as to what things look like here, for today at least. Some places are complete disaster zones while the majority are largely unaffected. So in a big way life goes on as normal while others have lost everything.

6. The government has done an excellent job of getting people in to relocation shelters.  The displaced families are receiving decent meals and donations of clothes and other necessities. Still, many of the shelters are crowded and people have to wake up very early to stand in line for the bathroom to bathe and prepare for work.  The government has said that it could take up to a year and a half to find/construct housing for everyone in the shelters.  The people on our hillside that have left their houses are located in three different shelters around our section of the city.  Since we have connections with many of these families, we were able to receive many of their goods that they would have lost otherwise (appliances, furniture, etc). We have also been able to open our house to help them with washing their clothes. Our team has been visiting and coordinating donations from individuals and churches to different shelters.

7. Right before things got really bad (or even knew they were going to get bad), we held a Christmas celebration for the families of the youth volunteers.  It was a beautiful celebration to bless them and their families with the traditional Venezuelan Christmas dinner: Hallacas, chicken salad and pan de jamón (rolled ham bread).  Many of the mothers were highly appreciative noting that they had never had such a beautiful night in their lives.  Sadly enough, two days later, they were forced to leave their houses.

8. Please pray for the following:
--No more rain!  Thankfully we've had little rain since the start of December, but things keep shifting underground and leaving more houses at risk at the surface. Any additional rain will put everything at risk.
--For God to hold up the remaining parts of our hillside, for the main road to remain open and for a quick resolution to the trash issue. 
--For our team as we are tired and there are a lot of necessities and possibilities in front of us.
--For those in the shelters, especially for security as there has been rumors of children being molested. 
--For those who remain in our hillside in situations of risk, that they would be willing to abandon their at risk housing instead of sticking it out stubbornly.

--For everyone that is a bit traumatized by all the events and the uncertain future of our hillside.  

We all appreciate your prayers and I hope to hear from you all soon, although it might be a while before I can respond.  Also, if you would like to make a donation to help with the costs of the ministry we're doing, including a special Christmas celebration for the families in the shelters, you can make a donation to our Caracas team fund and put "Rains" in the additional information section.  Until then, stay strong, seek the Lord and as always

Press on for Joy!

Cameron

Of all the natural disasters, flooding is certainly the most boring.  Fires are mesmerizing, earthquakes leave swaths of collapsed buildings and daring rescues, and tornadoes are worthy of movies unto themselves.  But water is simply just water.  We see it, we drink it, we bathe in it daily.  So the novelty of the stuff wears off pretty fast; a factor which makes it all the more destructive.

In 1999, Venezuela suffered one of the worst natural disasters in recent times when days of straight rain brought mudslides screaming down the mountain called El Avila towards the coastline. Between the coastline and the mountain stood the resort and beach capital of Caracas, La Guiara. The mudslides went straight to the beach taking houses, condos, cars, and people with them. The slides killed around 30,000 people and to this day, the area has not recovered it's former glory.

So when the rain started heavy this September, everyone was both thankful that the drought of the previous year had come to a definitive end, and also extremely worried.  The ground became saturated and the community of 16 of Julio, built on a steep hillside landfill just below our barrio began to show signs of problems.  Some walls of houses collapsed letting tons of dirt into families' kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms.  The stairs connecting the barrio the began to settle and sat off kilter.  By the time the beginning of October rolled around, some families had already fled to government shelters, but the majority were determined to stay. "Hasta la muerte!" (Until death) they said.

October was thankfully dry, but November was not.  Things came to their climax on Monday, the 29th of November with hours and hours of constant rain.  That evening, the community of 16 de julio stood huddled under umbrellas and staircases. A few large, abandoned trucks were threating to fall onto the houses and shacks below.  As we waited there in the rain with the people of 16 de julio, the local consejo comunal (community counsel) organized and opened up it's doors to receive the families most at risk. We brought down as many mattresses as we could so that people would have something to sleep on that night, and as it turned out, many nights afterwards. We stayed with the families until one in the morning drawing and playing with the kids, and talking with worried mothers.  Amazingly enough, the evacuated persons were not worried about themselves, instead they were worried about the rest of the people in the community that were still in potential danger. 

The next day, the official government numbers revealed almost 27,000 people across the nation had been received into quickly established shelters. Now, less than two weeks later, the entire community of 16 de Julio is all but evacuated; it's residents who were previously defiant are now among the now 110,000 people in shelters in the long wait for the chance to start anew.

I wish I had more time to write, but for the moment, I'll have to limit myself to one story from the community of San Pablito to illustrate what happened there on the 29th, and the unassuming bravery of one of it's residents.

Rosa is quite the character.  Rather obscene, loud, and overweight, accompanied by a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she tends to make a scene wherever she goes.  She's from the community of San Pablito which is one of the most infamous, although not necessarily the worst, barrios in our part of town. All the same, she is a hero. 

As I had mentioned, on Monday the 29th, it rained everywhere.  San Pablito is built in a very steep ravine and can receive huge quantities of water from the mountainside above at any given moment.  So Monday saw the small little stairway that serves as the main thoroughfare of the community under a rushing torrent of water full of mud, rocks, and pacifiers.  Pacifiers?  The houses highest up the hill were flooding and the residents were seeing their scant possessions whisked away by the water.  Rosa lived in front of and thankfully above, one of these flooding houses. 

She had just finished an exhausting day of washing and cleaning which necessitates the hooking up of a water pump to the main water line closer to the center of the barrio to get water to the house.  As she told it, all she had left to do was to iron when the rain started. Even in spite of her tiredness, when the water from the ravine began to fill the house below, she jumped into action without thinking.  Kicking off her sandals, she jumped into the torrent between her house and the other. Once inside the house, she waded through the thigh deep water looking for the people inside.  Everything was floating, she said, in dark opaque water: the mattress, cups, plates, diapers, bottles, and so on.  On the floating mattress was an eight day old baby girl. At the newborn's side, was a toddler of just over a year of age.  Rosa grabbed the closest thing she could to wrap up the newborn. Swaddling the infant in a black plastic bag and holding her in one arm, she instinctively grabbed the sibling in another. Rosa turned around to find the baby's young mother sitting in a chair more than waist deep in the water and very startled.  Rosa threw the young mother over her shoulder (only later did she realize that the mother had undergone a cesarean and was very much still recovering) and wading through the water filled house and torrent covered steps, brought all three to her house.  She cleaned the newborn and had her soon wrapped up with the pajamas of her own toddler daughter.  She was later in tears and hyperventilating coming down from the adrenaline, and wondering how in the world she had the strength to save all three of them, much less cross the newly formed river in front of her house.  Soon after, a neighbor came by screaming.  She was a relative of the young family that had just been saved. Rosa quickly informed her that she had them in her house and was taking care of them.  Rosa didn't tell us the most amazing part of the story until we were just about to leave. Up to the moment of the rescue, Rosa and this family hadn't been talking for well over six months.  Long ago, there had erupted some problem between the two houses that was still not resolved. However, in the right moment, God gave Rosa the grace to save her enemy. 

Rosa is no saint, but I'm continually amazed how the most unsaintly continually perform the most sacrosanct acts.  I'm also incredibly saddened at the slowness of the "saintly" here in Caracas to respond.  While visiting San Pablito, we prayed with Rosa for God's protection over the barrio.  Together, we gave thanks for His protection over the community and how He had used Rosa to save the lives of her neighbors.  She gave thanks that no one had died, and we asked for His goodness and protection for those in the shelters.

Very early one Thursday morning a couple of week before the 29^th, a number of us were independently awoken in the early morning with a calling to pray.  It was raining cats and dogs and the fear that something bad was about to happen was thick.  We were all praying, each individually unaware that our teammates and various members of a local church were all doing the same.  I finally feel asleep at around four in the morning while Arturo and Lay Yen went outside soon after the rain had stopped.  An electric orange sky painted with a full double rainbow awaited them. They took some pictures, but the camera couldn't capture the entire wonder. Arturo has taken it as God's promise over this section of the city, that although the ground around us might fall, His promise is greater.  We give thanks that there have been so few deaths in the nation and none in our part of the city even though the rain has been at least double of what it was in 1999.  We give thanks we still have a place here in the barrio that looks solid for the moment.  We give thanks that people have a place they can go when they do lose their house.  We give thanks that God has used us in very small ways.  We give thanks for His protection and goodness.  And Lord willing, we'll keep giving thanks for a long while more.  Until that time, keep praying, trust Jesus and

Press on for Joy!