Hello All,
This update is long overdue. To be truthful, I have been overwhelmed and at a loss for exactly what to say, and November was a perfect storm of travel, hurricanes, heavy homework load, immigration issues, and Thanksgiving.
To begin, the week we were scheduled to fly out of Honduras, Hurricane Eta made landfall. All of the newscasters were comparing Hurricane Eta to Hurricane Mitch, which hit Honduras in 1998 and left the nation destitute. Just earlier that week I had talked to a young man who had been left homeless as a child as a result of Mitch. In the national history, there is a before Mitch and an after Mitch. When I compared Doppler footage from Mitch and Eta, they looked very similar and scary. We had no way of knowing how bad the devastation would be because it wasn't so much about wind as it was about rainfall--same as Mitch. Flooding and landslides were the primary concern. Our home sits on a hill leading to a mountain top, but because our house was placed in a cleft where the hill was dug out, it sits in the pathway of water flowing downward. This concerned me, so we prepared by digging trenches, emptying our cistern when it filled, and keeping an eye on water buildup. I can say that if we had not had a rock retaining wall behind our house, our house would have filled with water and mud because mudslides behind our house happened before they built the retaining wall. Thankfully, our house was fine, and most of Tegucigalpa was spared though there certainly were some homes that fell victim to isolated flooding and landslides. The rest of the nation experienced widespread flooding with devastating results. The airport was closed the day before we were set to fly out, so we packed but didn't know if we would make it out or not. We did.
Upon arriving in the US, we received a great victory--we had no issues entering the border despite Raul's having been out of the country for more than a year. We also didn't have to pay a waiver. This was a huge relief and the product of months of prayer.
Just a few days later, Honduras was facing yet another hurricane--Hurricane Iota. People had been trapped on roofs for days following Eta. Numerous people were living on the streets because they were displaced and couldn't return to their homes since they were under water. People were missing, and temporary shelters were packed. The government had acted slowly in evacuating people for Eta because it fell in a week that the government had declared a holiday week in an effort to bolster the tourism industry that was suffering greatly due to COVID restrictions that had been in place since March. For Hurricane Iota, however, the government began evacuating early. It was another slow-moving storm though a Category 5. Nicaragua and some parts of Honduras got hit with the brunt of the winds. The rest of the country suffered with the rain. The storm was much larger than Hurricane Eta and enveloped the entire nation. Once again, Tegucigalpa was largely spared, but the areas that were hit the hardest by Hurricane Eta were hit again.
Because I don't have firsthand pictures, I'm choosing not to publish what isn't mine on this platform, but the pictures that emerged on social media were absolutely devastating. The airport we are set to fly into in January still has standing mud inside as it was underwater. Many people can't even return to their homes to try to salvage anything because the water hasn't fully receded yet. US news hasn't covered the damage nearly at all since I have been here, so you really would have to look to find footage, but you will find it if you search for it. I have seen it estimated recently that it will take a decade or longer for Honduras to recover. For most of the nation, the double damage of Hurricane Eta and Hurricane Iota was a repeat of Mitch. People who worked their whole lives to build a small home or to establish even a meager livelihood lost everything in a matter of weeks. Just to give you an idea of how impactful these events were, here are some statistics published by a national newspaper in Honduras:
1.7 million people were affected
More than 8000 families lost everything
37,000 are in temporary shelters (in the ongoing midst of COVID)
59,406 were evacuated
28,039 people were rescued from the water
A governmental report assessing damage after the first hurricane stated that:
10,326 people are now displaced
46 known landslides occurred
7,556 were either destroyed, flooded, or damaged
79 rivers overflowed
39 roads were blocked
Can you imagine what was added to that during the second hurricane? There are whole communities of people who cannot return to their homes because landslides washed the roads away. There are communities that were cut off from major commercial routes that bring food because bridges were destroyed.
The Honduran Foreign Minister updated the previous statistics by saying that:
276,000 people were evacuated between the two hurricanes
123,000 people were rescued from the water
130,000 people are now living in shelters
35,000 homes were destroyed or damaged
37 bridges were destroyed
57 bridges were damaged
According to the UN, of the 9.1 million people in Honduras, there are 2.3 million people in need. It is estimated that $69.2 million dollars will be needed to meet that need in a country where corruption is rampant. Those estimates were made BEFORE the damage of the second hurricane. (All of the above statistics were facilitated by posts from fellow missionaries.) COVID lockdowns were lifted following the hurricanes and have not been reinstated thus far. The nation had been under lockdown since March. Honduras is now experiencing an uptick in COVID cases.
If you would like to see footage of the devastation in Honduras due to flooding, you can watch these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q4ve0ZidNs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLhVb1J_oUo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO3vfX3lK_8
One of the reasons why this update is so belated is that it is so heartbreaking that I don't know what to say. Watching interviews with the people of Honduras who lost everything makes me cry, and there have been many nights when I've been awake at night asking the question over and over, "Where do we go from here?" I don't have easy answers for that as a nation or even as a ministry. The need is great, but it's mostly concentrated in areas that we do not frequent. We don't have close connections or relationships with the communities most affected, and in the midst of COVID, I still have not discerned what the appropriate response is for us personally. We want to love well, and we also want to do no harm. What I know that we can do and will continue to do while we are Stateside is to funnel funds to missionary friends who are on the ground in those communities cleaning homes, distributing food and clothing, and being the hands and feet of Jesus. If you would like to make a donation to those relief efforts of our trusted friends, you can go to www.godsendinc.org to make a tax-deductible donation via PayPal (please just include a note that it is for hurricane relief), or you can send a check to Godsend, Inc. at:
1608 Boulder Road
Buckhannon, WV 26201
(please also include a note that it is for Honduras hurricane relief)
I still can't wrap my head around the need or our role in filling it once we get back to Honduras, but I will continue to pray and seek God's discernment. I would appreciate your prayers for that discernment.
Since we have been in West Virginia, COVID cases have been incredibly high (as has been the case throughout most of the US). It seems that every week someone else I know has it, is hospitalized with it, or has a loved one who has passed away because of it. We have just been home with my parents, and we thankfully did not contract COVID during our travels. We so appreciated your prayers for our protection, and we will again ask for them for our return trip in January.
One major battle that we faced just last week was accomplishing the fingerprinting needed for Raúl's citizenship application to be processed. For anyone who feels the strong conviction that immigration should be done legally, I hear you, and I also sincerely hope that you have done your homework to know what a challenge that is. I won't get into the details of how difficult it was and how truly truly frustrating the system is for me, but if you'd like to have a better understanding of how hopeless it can be to navigate the system, please send me a message. I wish that more Christians would educate themselves on the matter. Suffice it to say that it was an absolute miracle (after months of prayer) and two kind souls that made it possible for his fingerprinting to be completed. I had called and called the national hotline and had received no help. In fact, two days after I called and received no help, our deadline was inexplicably moved up from February 2 to December 30, or his case would be closed. Now, I feel like I can breathe again, and we settle into the studying portion of the process. USCIS is backed up with cases due to COVID, so while it is estimated that Raúl will have to return in June in order to take his citizenship test, it is hard to know if that estimation is accurate or not. Either way, we appreciate your prayers for his studying endeavors and the process in general.
One additional praise report and joy for this month was that our sponsored student Estefanny received her high school diploma and also got married to Brayan (another student we have sponsored). It took a year of hassle, dead ends, lies, and frustrations for her high school to finally give her the diploma she earned. This cost her a year of college studies, but we are so grateful to have it in hand at last. I am proud of her perseverance to continue knocking on the door. This month she and Brayan also got married after many years of dating. Brayan is an excellent young man who loves God, and I have been blessed by the way they have honored God in their relationship and in preparing for marriage. I have known Estefanny since she was 13-years-old and was able to witness the way God has transformed her life and the lives of her family members. I wonder what 13-year-old Estefanny (who was so full of hurt and looking for relief in places that wounded more) would have thought about the life she now leads. I don't think she would have believed it was possible. I am so proud of her and Brayan.
November was a fight or flight month. God proved Himself faithful to us every time, but I still feel like my soul doesn't know how to process all of the grief. Hurricane grief. COVID grief. Grief for my brothers and sisters who find themselves just doing the best they can and wondering if it is enough. As we enter December, I am trying to give myself permission to feel what I need to feel. I hope you'll do the same. Feeling the reality of grief never lessens the faithfulness or power of the Father. We cannot be comforted if we refuse to mourn.
All of my love,
Sarah
