Our experience with rainy season in all of our years here has brought many challenges and adventures, but this year’s adventure now ranks near the top.
The flooding at home here in the jungle basin has not been terribly difficult this year, especially compared to other years, but there has been a record amount of rain in the Andes Mountains that has caused massive flooding and landslides. The death toll is near 90 now, with hundreds more missing and injured. Roads and bridges are washed away, whole towns are stranded with no access to help, and the water supplies are contaminated causing water outages to millions of people. The country is in a state of emergency.
This all happened the same week that we chose to drive to Lima for paperwork, doctors appointments, to take my mother to the airport, and for a mini vacation during the children’s Spring break. Of course it did. So, the trip over the Andes was more or less uneventful and absolutely spectacular, even though we drove around some massive, freshly cleared – and some not so cleared landslides. That’s nothing new for these roads, and we made it without incident as disaster waited to strike until we had already arrived at the coast.
We had a lovely three days at the beach thanks to very dear friends of ours that so kindly let us stay in their beautiful home. It was an incredible blessing to be able to be quiet and still for a couple of days at the ocean. We first noticed something was amiss on our last day at the beach. We waded out into the cold Pacific waves and felt an amazing amount of trash and dead sea-life on the ocean floor. We then saw that there were small bits of trash floating everywhere.
Apparently, during the night, many of the rivers flowing out of the Andes into the Pacific overflowed and wreaked havoc, turning roads into rivers, taking lives and houses and businesses with them.
Our trip home was obviously delayed as we were trying to learn what routes might still be open, but the news was dismal. We took advantage of the extra time and got to visit with some friends that we haven’t seen in a long time. The children sang “Jesus loves me” in Spanish to an elderly man that was sitting on a bench on the sidewalk in front of our hotel, and he started to sing along with them! Sometimes just stopping and acknowledging a person’s existence is enough to open a window of opportunity to share God’s love with them.
After several days, the main road was said to finally be cleared and open, but the police were restricting traffic to 3-ton trucks or bigger in order to deliver food and supplies to the jungle. We’re grateful of course, knowing what it’s like to live on the other side of those mountains with a restricted supply! But we no longer had a way to drive home in time for the children to start school, so we parked the car in a safe place, and flew home.
God has been abundantly good to us with His protection and provision. We are safe, we are home and we are grateful. Our old, faithful farm truck will get us around until we can fly to Lima to drive our car back over the mountains when things are clear and relatively safe.
The sheer power of the rivers as they flowed down the mountains was an awesome thing to behold. How grateful we are that the One, whose voice commands the wind and the waves, cares for us. Please pray for our Peru. Pray for all of those that have lost so much in these natural disasters.
“The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord, over many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
The voice of the Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.
May the Lord give strength to his people!
May the Lord bless his people with peace!”
Ps. 29:3-4&10-11
For a good look at what is going on in Peru, NBC has put together a slideshow that is very well done.
http://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/floods-mudslides-hit-peru-displacing-tens-thousands-n739846