Hurricane Stan- 9 Oct. 2005

Maya-Mesoamerica Mission
P.O. Box 746
Elkins, AR 72727
www.mayamission.org

Weather reports on Tuesday, October 4, indicated more rain for western Guatemala. The previous few days Hurricane Stan had drenched southern Mexico, and now he was ready to unleash his fury on Central America. It was raining hard as children were going to school. But not too much was thought about it, as it had been raining for several days as one tropical storm after another had pounded western Guatemala. By noon there were reports of flooding in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second largest city and the home base for the ministry we serve with, Maya-Mesoamerica Mission. When school let out at three o'clock worried parents were scrambling to collect their children. The streets had already become swollen rivers and the rivers were menacingly close to overflowing their banks.
With daylight on Wednesday it was clear that Hurricane Stan was in the process of leaving disaster in his wake in Guatemala. Government officials had declared a state of red alert across the entire country which put all search and rescue agencies on standby. There was no school in Quetzaltenango on Wednesday, and the Department of Education announced there were to be no classes throughout the country on Thursday. Wednesday evening reports were starting to come in that there were villages in the south and west of Guatemala that had experienced extensive flooding and mudslides.

Amatitlan, a town south of Guatemala City, reported flooding Thursday morning. It is one of the towns where a mission team from Saint Paul's Lutheran Church had been working only a couple of weeks earlier. Although no deaths have been reported in Amatitlan there is significant property damage due to the flooding and mudslides.
In Quetzaltenango the situation was of crisis proportions. Mud swept down volcanic mountainsides covering large sections of the Pan-American Highway, the city's main link to Guatemala City. The other less used highway to Guatemala City along the Pacific coast was also impassable. Entire bridges were swept away by swollen rivers.  through blackouts a significant part of the day.
 

These bridges are comparable to ones spanning the Missouri river. It will be years before they can be replaced. As I write this article, (Sunday, October 09, 2005), the city is still cut off from the outside and there is no estimate when the Pan-American Highway will reopen. In Quetzaltenango there are food shortages, no gasoline, and electricity is being rationed.
Our mission church in the village of Las Nubes is usually a forty-five minute drive from Quetzaltenango. Friday, one of the Guatemalan men we are training to be a pastor, tried to get there. There were many mudslides across the road, but he made it in three hours using a motorbike and walking. We are thankful there are no deaths at Las Nubes, but there are numerous homes destroyed by the mudslides. Several families are now living in the church building that a mission team from Heartland Church erected last June while serving with Maya-Mesoamerica Mission.
Amatitlan and Las Nubes were spared death, but not all villages were so fortunate. To date there are; 509 fatalities, 337 people missing, 97,872 injured, 84,942 who have sought refuge in shelters across Guatemala. There are still 180 villages in rural areas with which there has been no communication.
We have plenty of food and water where we live and our house is not in any threat from the deadly mudslides. The major threat to our health presently is the mold growing on the interior walls of our house. Everything is so wet with the constant rain it is impossible to dry completely out.
The current weather forecast is not good. There is a tropical storm forming off the coast of Panama and landfall is projected in a couple of days in Guatemala. For more information about our ministry in Guatemala visit our mission website at www.mayamission.org.
And the rain came down, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it did not fall, for it was founded on a rock. And everyone who hears these sayings of Mine and does not do them shall be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain came down, and the floods came, and the wind blew and beat on that house. And it fell, and great was its fall. And it happened, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His doctrine. For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
(Matthew 7:25-29 MKJV)