Wilma’s path across Caribbean sends missionaries into action
MÉRIDA, Mexico (BP)--Four days after Hurricane Wilma crawled across Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Mexican nationals and tourists still wear wet clothes as they search for food and clean water. They are desperate for the necessities of life –- such as one little girl’s need for asthma medicine.
Two-year-old Sophie, the daughter of a Mexican Baptist youth minister, lives with asthma. She needs special medicine -– medicine that International Mission Board missionary Doug Millar has in hand. However, a five-foot wall of water at least a mile wide separates Millar from little Sophie in Cancún. He asks Southern Baptists to pray that God will part the flood waters so Sophie can access the most basic of human needs: air.
Listen to Millar’s prayer request for Sophie
“Our main concern at this point is just the health and safety of people, to get food and water -– primarily just keeping folks alive,” Millar said.
Hurricane Wilma pounded the Mexican coast on Oct. 22, a Category 3 storm with 125-mph winds that claimed at least eight lives in Mexico and more than a dozen in the Caribbean. The center of the storm passed directly over Cozumel Island before making landfall near Playa del Carmen, south of Cancún.
International Mission Board personnel in the area are safe. They and their local Baptist partners already have begun efforts to bring basic relief in the form of water purifiers, rice and beans. Food staples have been purchased using Southern Baptist World Hunger & Relief funds and will be warehoused in the Baptist churches in Mérida, Cancún and Playa del Carmen. They also will provide clothing and housing supplies.
“We have had major destruction, not only in the poor areas, which normally in a flood would have tragedy, but also, even in the main hotels in the hotel zone,” Millar said. “There was a 30-foot [wall of] water that went across the hotel zone into our bay that devastated the area.
“It looks like Louisiana,” he added, noting that Hurricane Wilma’s slow path across the peninsula intensified the damage.
Millar and his wife, Darla, have served nine years in Cancún; they have worked in Playa del Carmen only three weeks. The Millars hope to return to their home Oct. 24 to see if it still stands. An electric company employee told them residents could be without power for months.
“I know there are a lot of terrible things happening around the world, and people are weary of hearing about it,” Millar said. “But the truth is, we’re just praying that somehow God will bring some good out of disaster. So first, just pray that we can be a testimony, and that we will have the faith that God can bring something good out of bad.”
Southern Baptists’ gifts through the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering make it possible for IMB personnel to live around the world, on location and ready to help in times of crisis. Millar asked Southern Baptists to also give specifically to the relief efforts.
“These people have been walking around for four days now in wet clothes, and many of them have lost everything,” he said.
Millar also asked people to pray:
-- for the people of the Yucatán Peninsula who are suffering in the wake of the storm.
-- that God will part the waters so Millar can deliver Sophie’s asthma medicine.
-- that believers in Mexico will be good witnesses of Jesus’ love, and that God will unite the Christians.
Hear Millar’s message to his prayer supporters.
-- that people will give to relief efforts.
-- for people who have lost loved ones through the storm.
To financially aid the people of Mexico, checks for “MAC Hurricane Relief” (MAC is the Middle America and the Caribbean region of the International Mission Board) can be sent to the International Mission Board, P.O. Box 6767, Richmond, VA 23230. To give online, go to www.imb.org/worldhunger, select “Give Now” and give through the General Relief Fund. One hundred percent of the gifts will go for relief aid.
Listen to Millar’s entire message to his personal prayer network
