Notes from a Taiwan Missionary
14/08/2009 10:13 am
BUT today I discovered that in the mountain areas there has been some major havoc particularly with mud slides. At the moment the official death toll stands at something like 35-50 but there is at least one village where 100's are missing and may be buried, but it's very difficult to know where people are registered when its at their family home. In country areas less than 1/2 of those people might actually live there. So they don't know if only 100 are missing or 1000!
Some major bridges are out and possibly 7 car loads of people drove off one. One of those bridges is a the main one between here and Kaoshiung, so we are more cut off than I realized.
I went to the market today and was able to get enough vegie's and fruit for the week. The areas most affected are the farming areas and so it remains to be seen what effect that will have, beyond price increases. The biggest difficulty for this area at present is that all water is now off until at least Thursday and perhaps into next week. I have enough drinking water and a few bucketfuls but will probably end up sharing some with people who need it.
The sun is out at last but that means the temperatures are rising. I was pleased that the rubbish truck came today (normally comes daily but we hadn't seen it since Thursday) as the rubbish was building up and could be smelt from the 5th floor. 3/4 of us helping load the truck were Christians. May this tiny service make a difference.
The next towns down were more serious. A big health hazard (and terrible smell) is that the fish in the fish ponds washed out and now dead fish ...are everywhere.
Please pray especially for:-
1) Health issues related to lack of water, dead fish/chickens ...rubbish everywhere and heat. Plus the possibility of dengue fever which is carried by mosquitoes (water lying around is the perfect breeding siutation).
2) Believers to live as 'light' and be positively different. At the moment the only aid visible is being offered by the hugely wealthy and well-organized Buddhist organization -Tsz Chi. The things needed are not so much food as clean water, help with cleaning up and esp. rubbish removal. Rubbish/electricity and water companies are doing an excellent job but probably get little thanks.
3) I'm feeling especially useless because most of the locals refuse any help at all. There is none of that community spirit that there'd be at home. I find it very discouraging and was particularly distressed to see the neighbours out offering to the idols right after the floods receded here.
Surely there is something more useful that I could be doing. I'm supposed to be starting a new Bible study series tonight at the Pres. church. Will go and see if anyone comes. I think praying would be more appropriate. Ask that God gives us wisdom to whether there is anything useful that we could be doing. Actually I think the most useful would be if we could help the garbage collectors but there is probably some rule against it!