When Hurricane Felix slammed into Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast a couple months ago, Verbo was immediately on the job with disaster relief. When teachers in an impoverished central Guatemalan town needed help to become more professional, Verbo Madrid, Spain, sent educators to help them.

On Nov. 19 one of the members of our Verbo church in Villa Lobos, a Guatemala City suburb, was shot and killed while he attended customers in his butcher shop just three blocks from the church. One of the local gangs that terrorizes the area had been demanding more money to “protect” his business, but he refused. A young kid, probably no more than 14 years old shot him at point blank range in front of his terrified wife and two sons.

Can you put a face on disaster with numbers? If you could, the aftermath of Hurricane Felix on Nicaragua’s northeast would look like this:

Over 100 people died, another 500 are unaccounted for and many of them are presumed dead.

12 remote villages were apparently wiped out, but clear information is not yet available.

• 155,528 people suffered losses from winds and rain.
• 9,809 homes were destroyed.
• 6,679 homes were damaged.
• 96% of the region’s agricultural production was ruined.

View Newsletter with Adobe PDF

1. Food Outlet and Bakery Provide Jobs
2. Costa Rica Church Grows Strong