God Moments

As various members of our teams have given health presentations, discussed the use and cleaning of the water filter, drilled holes in buckets and completed the filter assembly, and led children’s programs, we have seen God at work. These first three days of the week, we are serving suvivors of the volcano who are living in the shelter village. Families are closely spaced in these simple wooden buildings, each of which has four one- room dwellings. Meals are served from a common pavilion; there are no cooking facilities in the rooms. Most spaces are surprisingly clean, though very sparsely furnished with items that the families may not keep when they move into permanent housing. Yet faith is strong among many of the families.

A substantial portion of our ministry involves delivering the buckets with filters to families in which at least one adult has attended the instructional programs in the morning. At each dwelling, we review use and cleaning of the filter, give a brief Gospel presentation and a New Testament, and pray with the family. Stories that have been shared with team members are often heartbreaking and sometimes miraculous: the couple whose two children and the grandparent caretakers perished in the disaster while the parents were safe at work; the eight-months pregnant woman who was provided a ride out of the danger zone; the family that lost members and had a seven-year-old girl burned on most of her body, now amazingly recovered. We wonder at the very young and the very old who were rescued; many, of course, were not.

One of our small delivery groups made three attempts to deliver a bucket to a household where parents were working. Leaving the system with the fourteen-year-old girl was not permitted. It looked as if the task would be delegated to Nury and a member of the local church on Saturday, but the parents returned just before our team left. The presentation was given to a grateful family with a particularly attentive father, who eagerly joined the team in prayer.