Begin forwarded message:
From: Jane boyce <janeboyce@live.com>
Date: February 5, 2018 at 9:33:56 PM AST
To: Jane boyce <janeboyce@live.com>
Subject: Update 12
It's hard to take in all that fills our days...I'll try.
Saturday morning we were up & dressed by 7:30...and outside our house people were already lining up as the news of a Red Cross truck coming spread quickly through the community. The rain didn't keep them away. At 9:30 in pulled a rough looking semi truck & the mad rush began. About 10 of us unloaded the truck making piles with water & 4 food boxes each. After we'd made about 200 of them, two Red Cross workers starting distributing them and we continued building another 100 piles. It became apparent that the line was longer than the piles so they closed the gate & no more were allowed to get in line. We reduced the number of food boxes to 2...and in the end ran out of water & gave only one box to the last few. I so wanted to run to the store for more food! 331 in all went away with something. Many were too old to carry everything so we helped them. Several came in the same car so they drove off with quite a load. At 11:30, we closed the gate. The next couple hours cars slowed down in front but had to drive away with nothing. This will be the last Red Cross delivery in this area as they are pulling out of PR Feb 15. FEMA has already stopped food & water distributions. The locals, including me, have mixed feelings about ending the food & water. Many people obviously could still use it...but the local economy needs customers. But since many lost their jobs, money to support the economy is scarce. No perfect solution!
Later, we went to visit a neighbor with leukemia and then cleaned up another back yard. About that time, we got a message from one of the All Hands Volunteers (the group we've worked with several times) leaders letting us know where there were located & inviting to stop by. So off we went to find them. Took a bit of tracking down but we found them in Yabucoa ...which is really less than 30 minutes from Maunabo. The local community was welcoming them with a pig roast. Great dinner!! Lucky us!! We were introduced to the girl who will arrange the work sites and she was very open to the idea of connecting with our Pastor Johanna to get possible names of those she knows in need. Sure hope that works out. We can only do a little but AHV could accomplish a huge amount of re-building!!
Sunday morning found us in a rousing church service. After Johanna wrote her sermon, she painstakingly translated it into English bullet points so we were able to follow along. She is just beginning to learn English! The last several church services, there was a translator. And we are the only ones in the church who don't know Spanish! Talk about bending over backwards to make sure we feel welcomed!! Johanna's sermon was so full of hope...something so many people here need to hear: if God knows the names of each star...He surely knows and cares about you. Amen.
We hopped in our car and took off for the afternoon and ended up at a large shopping mall about an hour away. Most of the mall was either closed or damaged but open. Very few people around except at the cell phone store. Probably people still trying to get internet. I was feeling like we were wasting time as we drove out...til we saw a girl in a ditch crying. We rolled down our window and she cried out, "Please take me to a hospital...I'm pregnant & in such pain." Accessing the situation, we quickly decided she was truly in need. We got her in the back seat and she directed us to a hospital close by where attendants took over. Guess that's why we stopped at that mall.
