The service in Chalco starts today at 12:00pm local time. The current time here is:
From now until then we are packing up and loading instruments to take to Chalco, and then we’ll set up and practise there.
Thanks for your prayers! I’ll let you know how it goes. 🙂
Tomorrow we’re having a special service in Chalco to thank God for His mercy during the Chalco Flood. We’ll be providing some more clothing to those who lost so much in the flood, and also have Bibles to give them.
There will be some singing and a devotional during the service, but it’s especially a time for the people of Chalco to give testimonies and talk about everything that has happened.
Below is a (mostly) English version of the presentation we hope to show during the service (there’s still time to change a few things in it, but I think this is more or less how it will be – except in Spanish, of course!). It gives a bit of an overview the flood and some of the clean-up and relief efforts.
There’s still LOTS to be done, of course. The photos at the end were actually taken before the flood, so don’t be deceived by how nice it may look.
We would appreciate your prayers that the service on Sunday would be glorifying to God.
Here’s the video:
Today we brought provisions to a few dozen of the families affected by the flooding in Chalco. We also invited them and others to the special service on the 14th.
I didn’t take a lot of video of actually handing out despensas (provisions), because I don’t want to embarrass anyone. However, we had some good talks with some people – many people remembered us from when we served the breakfasts (and we remembered some of them). Eventually word got around and we attracted a crowd of neighbours – there were about 20 people around us for a while.
With four vehicles and lots of helpers, we were done in about an hour. Now, we’ll see what happens on the 14th!
Here’s the video:
We wanted to try to stretch the money farther, so after getting a few pre-packaged despensas, we went out and got some things in bulk – beans, rice, tuna, toothpaste, New Testaments, milk, and so on.
With a huge assembly line, the youth put together the packages, and I think we must have ended up with about 140 despensas.
As we give these out, we’ll be inviting people to a special event on the 14th of March – a service of thanksgiving right in Chalco.
Wow, you don’t realize how out of it you are until you listen to yourself talking! Oh well, with a little work I think this podcast is understandable.
Note, however, that I slipped in a Spanish word by mistake – my "teclado" class is actually my keyboard class.
Also, I mention information about donating to the Chalco Flood relief effort – you can find that information here. For more on the flood, you can find the related posts easily using the Chalco Flood tag.
And now, without further confusion, here’s the podcast…
Yes, after quite a few days with no rain, the rain has returned.
We went back to Chalco today, this time to a new location, to serve breakfast. Mostly we saw dry streets (all right, they were dry until it started raining!), though there are still pools of water here and there (such as in lots and buildings).
So the clean up is really getting rolling, which means mass chaos (as you’ll see). Most businesses in this area are still closed (well, the door may be open, but there’s nothing inside worth selling!), but people are shovelling things out of houses and out of sewers and so on.
Though some help is coming now, it’s little and it’s late. There were some recent protests by people from one community in Chalco a day or two ago. They had a "discussion" with police, as they asked why more help has not come.
A few of you have helped, and it’s appreciated. A couple people have mentioned that there’s been little (no?) coverage of this in Canada. Considering the thousands impacted, that’s pretty amazing. But we appreciate those of you who have been watching and listening here, and praying and giving.
Here’s a brief video to give you an idea what the street looked like today. With the rain, it was pretty miserable, and let’s just say the air wasn’t pleasant (which is why you’ll see many wearing facial masks)…