To grasp the scope of the devastation that Hurricane Mitch wrought in Central America you can't just look at the numbers: The more than 11,000 people dead or missing; the hundreds or maybe thousands of bridges and roadways wiped out; the hundreds of thousands of dead, bloated livestock rotting in the tropical sun; the villages swept from their foundations; the huge tracts of rich croplands suddenly buried under a deep cap of sand.
The most frightening devastation is in the eyes of the survivors. The dead have their rest. Plants will again cover the earth. But the living victims somehow have to find a way back from the brink of the destruction that took away their loved ones, their homes, their belongings, and their jobs in just a few days of massive, unprecedented downpours.
I think of the eyes of the vicemayor of Posoltega. The walls of the Casitas volcano crater gave out as Mitch's rain poured relentlessly over the Nicaraguan highlands. The subsequent mud/sand/rock/water slide buried over 2,000 people in her jurisdiction. Now, two weeks after this national tragedy, she told us about relief efforts with calm efficiency, belying the personal tragedy that she didn't have time to dwell on because of the staggering needs all around her. Two of her children died that dreary night the flood roared across the land.
Outside town, Verbo Nicaragua director Bob Trolese and I visited a hamlet. It was almost incomprehensible to think that the stream that was now a trickle had buried the original riverbed from bank to bank under nine feet of gravel for several miles up and downstream. The flood had deposited sand over fields of wheat and corn as it washed away houses and their occupants in a slushy torrent.
As we sat in the ruins, I talked to a woman who had lost family and friends to the flood. Would she rebuild if someone helped her with the reconstruction? Fear was in her eyes. The hurricane was gone. But the deep, wide riverbed that historically has kept rainy season runoff channeled toward the sea is now a memory. Any prolonged storm now could cause the shallow banks to overflow and drag more gravel over the land and inundate houses. Worse, none of their traditional crops can be grown on gravel.
The old woman and others I talked to hoped that the government would give them house lots somewhere on higher ground where they would at least be safe. "Where they would be safe." That was a major theme among the people with whom we talked as we surveyed the damage in many of the hardest hit parts of Nicaragua. It's hard not to think that if a storm had washed away your life's work once that it wouldn't happen again.
In the town of Antigua up against the Honduran border less than 30 houses washed away. Mitch left the adobe brick structures in the town proper intact, but landslides cut off the town from supplies. We hitched a ride in a US Army supply helicopter out of Managua to see how we could help.
The irony was strange. "Water," the people told us. "We desperately need water." As Mitch's torrent ravaged their crops, it also erased the town's water pump and treatment plant. People were going down to the river to bring water to their homes. But nobody knew how safe it was. There were still unburied bodies—human and animal—here and there in riverbeds in different parts of the nation. In one place where the volcano wall had caved in, dogs were eating the charred remains of human bodies that had been partially burned and buried in mass graves during cleanup efforts. No one knew what diseases these conditions might unleash. Cholera was already a problem in some areas. But people had to drink. Bob promised village officials that Verbo Ministries would do all we could to set up a new water system.
The next day brethren from Samaritan's Purse told us they would help by providing extremely effective and easy-to-maintain water filters. That would buy the time needed to rebuild a safe and plentiful water system. It didn't seem like much in the face of the tremendous need across Central America, but the sum total of these small projects is what will effect the recovery of the whole region. Our question is, "Where do you want us to work so that your compassion and love can touch and transform the lives of these hurting people?"
I believe one of God’s answers in on the fringes of the capital. As rising waters engulfed their houses, the government relocated thousands of people from the margins of Lake Managua to empty fields near Ciudad Sandino, itself a former refugee camp for people whose houses crumbled in the 1972 Managua earthquake. It’s very possible that thousands more, uprooted from their homes in the countryside when Mitch left them homeless and jobless, will swell the camp’s capacity dangerously beyond capacity.
Nicaraguans are a resilient people, accustomed to joke about their hardships. It was perhaps their determination to make the best of a depressing situation that took the edge off the bleakness I saw in this new refugee camp. I've seen poverty and danger and violence in 20 years of missionary service in Latin America, but the dark, scary potential of what we called "Black Plastic City" was truly frightening. When people have nothing - especially the younger ones - they sometimes start to think they have nothing to lose, and crime and violence become a self-justifying way of life.
This is the situation: The people were mostly poor squatters who had built shacks on the lake's shore in precarious conditions of hygiene. As the deluge suddenly raised lake levels in some places over 10 feet above normal rainy season marks, these people had to flee their homes, carrying only the most essential belongings from the flood. On the plain between Lakes Managua and Nicaragua, the lower-lying portions of the town of Tipitapa were submerged at the height of the storm, and two weeks later houses were standing in water as the town's creek raged like a flooded river.
The government quickly laid out small plots on the outskirts of Ciudad Sandino, bulldozed dirt streets out of the pastures, and moved the flood victims in. No water. No electricity. No sanitation. No cooking facilities. No health clinics, schools, or any other infrastructure. Minimal police protection. Each family received some black plastic tarp material, a few posts, and instructions to build a shelter. Relief agencies began bringing in food. Then the government laid down plastic water pipe with spigots at wide intervals to provide drinking and washing water.
Most people didn't go too far away from their shelters for fear they'd miss a food delivery, or that someone would steal their meager household goods. Gangs from the rougher sections of Ciudad Sandino had already invaded the camp harassing the residents and stealing what they could. Several people wondered aloud when the petty gangsters and drug traffickers would try to muscle in.
When we arrived on our second visit with an American Christian medical team the residents began lining up by the dozens. There were babies with diarrhea, men with bad backs, children with flu symptoms, pregnant women. People were desperate for affirmation that somebody was concerned about their plight. The first woman the team attended was still there when Bob and I left. I thought she needed more help. Then I realized she was there with her husband and two little children because they wanted to be around people who care for them and for the other Mitch victims with a warm, Christian touch. I think they sensed community but didn't realize it was the community of God extending Jesus’ love to them.
Verbo is planning as large a rebuilding project as we can find funds for. One of Bob's first priorities is to put in a first class baseball field (Nicaraguans are great players and fans). This hardly seems like a top need until you consider that probably more than half the camp's residents are children and young adults with nothing to do. Organized sports could play a strong role in keeping them away from delinquency until they can get settled into responsible jobs. House building, urban infrastructures and medical clinics are long-term projects.
Verbo also sees a church planting team as part of a total recuperation plan. If the people don't come to know Jesus, the refugee camp could quickly become an ugly dangerous slum filled with broken and spiteful people. Without a spiritual context there's no eternal hope. It's only God's perfect love than can cast out the fear in those victims' eyes.
You can contribute to this great effort of bringing material and spiritual help to Hurricane Mitch disaster victims with your offering to :Verbo Ministries, P.O. Box 17807, West Palm Beach, FL 33416. Or you can make a donation via our Website: www.verbo.org. Check our site for photos and updates on what our teams are and will be doing in Central America to help the victims on a long-term, Holy Spirit-guided basis.
Please pray that God grants us the wisdom, the manpower, and the finances to carry out a powerful recuperation program for his glory.
We feel that He is using this disaster to call thousands, even millions, of souls to his kingdom, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose (Rom 8:28)."
- - James Jankowiak, Verbo Missions Director