The flight from Managua to Puerto Cabezas has vastly improved since our initial trips in the early 80´s.    Where neither before, now waiting lounges on both sides enjoy air conditioning.  The Soviet air craft of those early years raised the compact dirt landing strips to a standard to virtually receive any weight air plane.

 

Though Hurricane Felix of a week ago did  damage to the poorest area of the second poorest nation in the western hemisphere.  What might have been expected but such damage was never imagined.  The latest statistics related by the governor of this department of Nicaragua cited over 155,000 people had been adversely affected, more than 14,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed and 96% of the agriculture will no longer yield any harvest.  
Flying into Puerto Cabezas on Friday and returning  Monday honored Myra and I with a first hand witness to the painful results, spread across the Northeastern region of Nicaragua,   Many, of the 300 communities of the 1,000 sq miles are now inaccessible except by helicopter.  Puerto Cabezas with an estimated pop of 50,000 has more of an infrastructure to more immediately respond to their own needs, such as crews replacing and repairing fallen electrical poles.   Even visiting some of the closer larger villages, destruction was absolute.   Food and clean water are the immediate demands, temporary shelter with sheets of black plastic are necessary for the remaining months of the rainy season.  

Our Verbo church with Pastor Earl and Damaris Bowie have been very helpful to many interested groups; helping coordinate local government officials, orienting U.S. churches and advising individual Christian efforts.  Pastor Earl has assisted organizations like Operation Blessing, Samaritan´s Purse and Forward Edge, Missionary Aviation Fellowship, Orphanetwork, Save the Children, Acción Medica Cristiana, various denominations and of course Verbo Christian Ministries.

Families are lining the pier of Puerto Cabezas to receive news, or the bodies of their loved ones.  Grief can be seen on the faces of so many people.  In the midst of this, Verbo has been honored to assist in the acquiring of 500 gallons of gasoline for the cleanup and trucking of fallen trees and debris in the city streets.  We have been able to help coordinate daily flights of emergency food rations and provide for 130 rolls of black plastic.  This has been in the first 5 days of the tragedy.

Verbo responding to disaster relief has grown simply be a part of our makeup.  Now after this initial surge of relief of the brutality of Hurricane Felix we hope to take on the more permanent reconstruction of homes.   Krukira,  a Miskito village we visited in these last few days has been totally flattened.  La Esperanza a very damaged neighborhood in Puerto Cabezas was where we passed out food packets.   Hurricane force winds fortunately had diminished to a strong tropical storm by the time it reach Krin Krin on the Rio Coco.  Here we have a church and a school but only a single house fell in this village.  Focusing our construction efforts, therefore on Krukira and La Esperanza might enable us to labor more intensely  both physically and spiritually.   Our heart would be to raise up a Christian banner of the proclamation of the Lord´s faithfulness.  Both the warmth and the resilience of the people in these 2 places struck all of our hearts.    I think we receive this as an affirmation that the Lord might here be honored by a mature and long sighted, integrated and genuine, Christian development project.

Lifting up a clear witness out of the mire left from the path of Hurricane Felix

 

Bob Trolese