Emergency Aid for Flooding Disaster
Alan Skene writes from Malawi:
The rainy season in Malawi starts around November and continues until the end of February, and the people are happy when they see the rains coming as they need “good rains” for their maize crops to grow well. This rainy season started well, rains alternating with sunny periods, just what maize likes!
But in January the rains became more intense and accompanied by high winds – by this time the maize is quite high and so this combination of weather becomes destructive. The winds can break the maize stalks which will mean the cobs cannot ripen and the deluge of water means that the roots are waterlogged and destroyed.
On top of this many rivers burst their banks leading to loss of gardens/crops and also loss of homes and property. We are thankful that we have not had any reports of loss of life to our members, but some of our Pastors are reporting loss of property and gardens among the members. When this happens the realization is that the hopes you had of a good harvest to keep you through the coming year are gone.
Sandra and I were horrified when going to a church in the Lower Shire last month to see water up to roof height, people swimming or canoeing to get to the roadside!
The government are beginning to bring in some assistance and we are grateful to Actionoverseas who have released funds to us to allow us to buy blankets and food and some household items to help our members recover from this experience of flooding.
Sandra says: “this area affected by the floods is the region I do the feeding programme in and for the last month or so I have been unable to reach the meeting point where we run the programme. However we do have a contingency plan for such situations and the women and children still receive their supplies!”
The other problem this situation brings us is not being able to reach some of our churches. But we are pleased to report that there has only been one scheduled church visit that we have been unable to get to and the new vehicle is proving its worth in the poor road conditions.
Amazingly there is a sting in the tail to the story as the newspapers are reporting that there is not enough rainfall in many other parts of the country! There is a concern that if the rain doesn’t continue many of the maize fields will dry up before the maize has time to ripen. Please pray about this issue, although it is not directly spiritual obviously people’s lives are greatly affected when there is hunger in the village.