AFTERMATH OF CYCLONE KENNETH
So much has happened, and we have never felt so stretched, encouraged, challenged and grateful to be alive. Words can’t explain what it has been like! We have cried, laughed and thanked God a lot.
What we have learnt? JESUS IS FAITHFUL & WORTHY OF IT ALL.
In May our Friend Chris wrote about what we were all doing and experiencing in Pemba after cyclone Kennth. He and his wife also have a baby boy, a little younger than Grace, and live with us on the Iris base. They are some of the main leaders assisting with the disaster relief in our province. Our team has been working none stop since the natural disaster, so much more has happened since this post but this gives you an insight of how the relief unfolded:
” Last week, Holy Spirit woke me up and showed me a picture of a boat. This particular boat was really a barge that was capable of making beach landings. I quickly researched, found the owner, and rented it for two weeks.
The only problem was that I had no food, no plan, and really no authority to make such an audacious rental (the darn thing is expensive).
This week that barge has already delivered 50 tons of food and hopefully is steaming back to Pemba so that we can reload it and send it back out. It’s taking food to the hardest hit area of the storm, places where people have been eating snails, worms, and green coconuts for the past 11 days. This week We received word that 2 elderly people died from lack of food. It’s a desperate situation.
During all of this, We were also approached By Samaritan’s Purse who had brought 5000 tarps to provide shelter. They were looking for people crazy enough to believe that they could get these tarps to the worst areas. They found the right people.
In order to do all of this, we have rented a total of 9 boats, made 15 plane trips, borrowed a helicopter, used countless trucks, rented an entire island, and sent our crazy missionaries and Mozambicans on 3 hour rides in wooden dhows to an area known for security risks.
Sometime this week, we’ll begin a holy invasion of the coast. Taking food, shelter, and Jesus to villages that don’t know Jesus, whose homes are destroyed, who have been terrorized for over a year, and who are so hungry they’ve resorted to eating worms.
This is what Iris does. We go where Jesus goes. We go when everyone else says no. We rent a boat with no money and no plan. We start buying food as we can. We sign on the dotted line. We go. We go because Jesus goes.” – Chris Hadsell
He also filmed and put together this video of Heidi Baker sharing how this terrible disaster opened up a door for us to minister and love one of the most forgotten and untouched tribes in Mozambique, the Mwani People. While traveling with the team, apart of his role was to report on the damage, capturing photos of how the cyclone had affected the coast. I hope you can get a glimpse of what they discovered, and how our teams brought aid, relief and distributed thousands of meals to a very desperate community.
Through it all, a friend sent us this verse. It was a huge encouragement, as we felt we could relate to Paul in one way or another…
“Brothers and sisters, you need to know about the severe trials we experienced while we were in western Turkey. All of the hardships we passed through crushed us beyond our ability to endure, and we were so completely overwhelmed that we were about to give up entirely. It has taught us to lose all faith in ourselves and to place all of our trust in the God who raises the dead. He has rescued us from terrifying encounters with death. And now we fasten our hopes on him to continue to deliver us from death yet again, as you labor together with us through prayer. Because there are so many interceding for us, our deliverance will cause even more people to give thanks to God. What a gracious gift of mercy surrounds us because of your prayers!” – Corinthians 1:8-11 (Paraphrased)
Please continue to pray for our teams, the government and all of those in Mozambique who were affected.
Blessing,
The Brewer’s
