And then came the floods …
I haven’t written much lately because – well – we’ve been pretty busy! It’s one of those seasons when things are hitting us from every angle. Not all big things, but lots of things.
So, you want to hear about the floods. While I was at the meetings in Texas, there was a big storm – rain, hail – here in Ixtapaluca. My family sent some pictures and video of the storm, but that was before they realized – it wasn’t just outside.
At the back of our house is our “servicio”, with the hot water tank, a place to scrub/hang clothes, our gas tanks, etc. Well, the drain backed up, and sewage water began to spew in. No one noticed until it started to come through the back wall into the house.
So this led to an afternoon of bailing, mopping, moving things out of the way – thanks to Shari, Hannah and Nathanael. A few things were wrecked, but nothing of much value thankfully.
From what I heard, Nathanael did a great job, bailing water out for two hours, so it didn’t flood the house worse!
Shari used a whole bunch of towels to mop up the filthy water. She washed them, and tried to dry them. But no heat was coming into the dryer.
That’s right, with all the extra laundry (including laundry from our travels, eventually), the dryer stopped working.
In spite of calling the repair person, no one came until this past Friday. So our dryer is out getting a very expensive repair done.
Speaking of Friday, as I was getting breakfast I noticed water on the floor (clean water, this time!). Our water jug dispenser thing was leaking. All through drawers and cupboards, leading to a drying cleaning frenzy in the kitchen which we finally finished today.
I think it was Shari who mentioned – we’ve had earthquakes, floods… what’s next, fire?
So this past Monday was when the fire truck arrived. Don’t worry, this isn’t anything serious. But we smelled a whole lot of gas outside, and so did our neighbours. It was coming from around our house – across the street?
Well, with firemen and police on our street, it was discovered that someone had washed out a gas tank, and the water – with the gas in it – had poured across the road in front of our house and down the sewer. Apparently not resulting in a danger of fire, but just a lot of fumes.
But enough of that. These are not really the things I’m thinking about that we’re dealing with. It’s more a bunch of things coming up – but this will get too long if I keep writing!
Let’s just say we have a busy week ahead! But we are looking forward to the 5th of November – our first anniversary as a church! More on that later.
This is going to be a month of travel for me (Jim), starting today. Lord willing I’ll be heading to Texas for an evangelism summit in Frisco, and then a series of Camino Global leadership meetings in Van (both near Dallas). Then I’ll pop back to Ixtapaluca for a day to lead worship music at our church, before heading to Tecolutla Veracruz for a retreat with our Camino Global team here in Mexico. This will be a time to update everyone on what I learn at the other meetings, as well as – I hope – a much needed time of refreshment for all!
You can see the family house above – this was their house and business. It’s a complete loss. Three families are now living in a single room next door.
For example, we came across this house (it was a business too, actually), which also is a loss (no, that is not a door on the right!). When we said we were from a Christian church, we found out that he was a Christian too, with a bunch of big Christian guys moving rubble behind the house. We prayed with them, and they enthusiastically and LOUDLY thanked God for His blessings and prayed for those who still did not have salvation. It was quite an experience there in the semi-darkness, with clouds of cement dust in the air! (I’m still coughing… dust was everywhere in this town…)
On the right you can see rough shelters that were just being put up last night, so that they would have a sheltered place to sleep.
This afternoon I went to the city of Puebla to pick up 28,000 evangelistic tracts that have been printed just for earthquake relief. The front of the tract says,”Fear in the face of tragedy”. It talks about the recent quakes, and then goes on to share about the “God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1:3).
It was hard to get many pictures to really show you the damage. You could see some walls that had crumbled a bit, but the real damage was inside the houses. Quite a few people in this town had homes that were more or less destroyed on the inside.
Hi everyone. *Phew* — after the relative quiet of yesterday (except for the radio), the beeps and buzzes of notifications are almost constant as we communicate with people about the earthquake and various relief efforts.