Mexico (MNN) — Mexicans are still picking up the pieces after Hurricane Wilma hit the Yucatan Peninsula October 22nd. The Category 3 storm with 125 mile per hour winds claimed eight lives and caused wide-spread damage.
The Southern Baptist International Mission Board is reaching out to help. IMB missionary Doug Millar says, “Our main concern at this point is just the health and safety of people, to get food and water — primarily just keeping folks alive.”
IMB personnel in the area are safe. They and their local Baptist partners already have started basic relief in the form of water purifiers, rice and beans. Food staples have been purchased using Southern Baptist World Hunger and Relief funds and will be warehoused in the Baptist churches in the region. 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,” says Millar. “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 is asking people to pray that God will bring something good out of the disaster. Pray that they’ll be able to talk to many people about Christ.
