Please pray for the ongoing rescue and recovery mission following the cyclone last weekend.
Malawi’s emergency services have very limited capacity, but several international teams are converging on Blantyre to assist with the search.
Malawi was already suffering from its worst ever cholera outbreak prior to the cyclone, and the flooding will make this problem much worse.
Brother Harold reports that they are still experiencing periods of heavy rain – pray that the country would have respite from these extreme weather conditions.
Please pray for much wisdom and guidance as we plan our disaster relief effort in the wake of Cyclone Freddy.
Brother Stephen has cancelled a planned trip to Jordan in order to return to Malawi on Monday (DV). It’s clear that the situation there is pretty dire. An initial survey of the area immediately surrounding Saidi reveals extensive damage.
Initially, we aim to establish a feeding station for those with nowhere else to go. However, we need to assess what we will be able to do to help our neighbours in the longer term, and plan how best to do it.
The rain has eased enough for Anna and Goodson to begin to assess the damage in the surrounding community following Cyclone Freddy.
Anna writes: ” We walked. 😉 Not even trying to drive today.
“Some pictures are following. The damage is extensive. Many, many houses have fallen. It’s a bit overwhelming.
“And, yet, what we are facing here is nothing compared to other parts of the country – where entire villages were swept away by mud slides.
“Please pray for wisdom to know how to help when the need is so overwhelming.”
Many, many houses have fallen. It’s a bit overwhelming.
Anna
A selection of the damaged houses in our community
In Blantyre, the situation is particularly bad in some of the very overcrowded townships. Blantyre is surrounded by mountains, and many of the townships are built on lower foothills, making them susceptible to mudslides. Homes are typically built with mud-brick, often with only mud for mortar, and building standards in the townships are not enforced. A recipe for disaster.
In the immediate aftermath of this disaster the needs are:
Plastic sheeting for emergency shelter
Blankets
Food
In the longer term there will a lot of reconstruction to do.
We have begun a process of talking to the local village chiefs to see who the most needy and vulnerable are.
Here is a selection of heart-breaking news pieces from reliable sources:
Please pray for those affected by Cyclone Freddy. Brother Goodson reports that the roof of his own sister’s house was blown away yesterday. This morning, the homes of a sister at Saidi and the carpenter who works on site there, have suffered partial collapse.
Please pray about the water supply at Saidi. Water comes from an on-site borehole, but this has been giving intermittent problems over the past couple of weeks, and has now stopped completely.
Our first borehole gave problems when it ran dry and we had to re-drill a deeper well. An engineer is to visit the site to try to establish the nature of the difficulty. Please pray that he will be able to “get to the bottom” of this issue quickly and that the water supply will be restored soon.
Cyclone Freddy’s position & predicted path on 7 March
Tropical Cyclone Freddy has already caused serious disruption and some loss of life as it passed over Madagascar and Mozambique.
After heading back to the Indian Ocean, Freddy has again begun to track towards the coast on a path which would take it to Malawi by this coming weekend.
Many families are still affected by last year’s Cyclone Ana. Please pray that the many tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people very vulnerable to serious weather-problems will be spared further hardship. Pray too that these difficulties may be used by the Lord to create increased opportunities for the Gospel.
Wati mentions: “We can pray for the Nthawi ya Baibulo as we pilot it. The books have now been shared among the different groups that will be piloting it.”
Brother Goodson asks us to pray for his son John (19) who was hospitalised yesterday with a recurrence of the problem he had a few weeks ago.
Health care in Malawi is very poor, so please really pray that John will get good medical attention and that the Lord will put his healing hand upon John.
Please give thanks for the hugely successful 4-day child protection training we did on site at Saidi last week.
This was very enlightening concerning the depth and extent of the problem of child abuse, and extremely informative on ways to address the issues in an African context.
Please pray too that what we have learnt will really inform the way we interract with children, and that it may ultimately result in outreach opportunities in our community.
Stephen will appreciate prayer as he starts the long return journey home from Malawi on Wednesday.
Also pray for the remaining couple of days of his trip, that he will be able to accomplish what he needs to.
Stephen has meetings today with both the architect and a chap whom he hopes will be able to help short out some of our IT challenges in Malawi. In particular, he’s hoping to be able to get the issue of powering the CCTV cameras sorted out once and for all.
