So You Think You’ve had a bad day?

Check this one out. Our neighbors woke up this morning to this sight of their front wall having fallen into the road. The pressure against these walls from the waters of the many days of rain is tremendous. Now about two months of a lot of manual labor and about $5000 and they will probably have a new and even higher wall. And this is one of the families with money. Can you imagine the effect of all this rain on those who are poor?

And so it Goes!

John

A couple days of Rain

It was so strange that yesterday during the clinic it began to rain. Hard! I used to tell friends that if they would come visit us I would guarantee that the weather would be beautiful. Don’t get me wrong: we have our allotment of rain in this Caribbean haven but the rain almost always happens at night. Actually, this rain did start at night, two nights ago, rained all day yesterday, poured all night last night, continued today and is still raining as I write. This morning they cancelled school because of rain. Have you ever heard of that one? In my time here I never remember it raining so much for so long a time. So what has changed? We’re not going there.

Actually the culprit is a tropical depression named Noel. Like the others, he formed off the coast of Africa about a week ago and drifted our way but unlike most he didn’t keep drifting to the west. He just got big and started to move north and quietly is in process of devastating lots of lives here in Haiti. To be honest I haven’t heard that on any news reports but because of the length of time the rain has continued and with the “heaviness” of the rain, I just take it for granted that we will begin to get reports within the next couple of days that someplace in Haiti some community or communities will be an afterthought. Their people will be ravaged with water and mud and their families will be mourning losses again. It always seems to happen. So, prove me wrong this time. Show me that no communities will be wiped off the side of a hill killing every last one. Feel free to write a comment telling me how dumb I am. I hope you’re right.

We are already seeing some of the effects of this rain in Port-au-Prince. The usual dark blue color of the water in the Bay of LaGonave is now brown. Check the picture out. I took it a couple hours ago.

I ask you to join with me in prayer for those who are (probably) at the present time fighting to keep their families out of the water and alive.

And So It Seems to Always Go!

John