"It's Raining Again/Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" Medley

It's about 9 p.m. now. The rains have started and the wind has picked up. The weather forecast calls for a front moving through in the night between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. tomorrow. The worst part will be the wind, according to the forecasters. In the higher elevations, the winds will be up to 75 mph. There isn't supposed to be as much rain as last Saturday morning, but as one of the head persons in the humanitarian aid services told me in my office this morning: the way things are now, it won't take a lot of rain to do a lot of damage.

Some people are so jittery, that it only takes a drop of water on the head to set off a Chicken-Little-the-sky-is-falling frenzy. We will seek to be prudent, to not be foolhardy; we will seek to be prudent, so as to not appear foolish.

(Saturday: the wind blew hard in the night, but I slept right through it, I was so exhausted. Abbie said she heard it. Minor damage this time... a tree fell on a car, but no one was injured; a small landslide with no major consequences.)

Back to nOrMaL

When I sent word to Lisbon last night that we would be working out of our office today for the first time since the storm, the Consul-General replied that he was "glad to hear that things are returning to normal."

Some things were normal: we were in our regular office, the main avenue and square in front of the cathedral were sparkling clean. There was a lot that was not normal, though. I was able to park in my designated spot downtown, but I had to pass through 5 or 6 police checkpoints and show my ID badge from the Embassy. The street at the office door was squeaky clean, but the block behind the office building (the ocean front avenue) was off limits. Pardon the pun, but I think you would have been more likely to get a Big Muck than a Big Mac in the McDonald's just below our office. In the interest of truthful disclosure, there was a team of young people cleaning up the McDonald's restaurant, but they were using their back door that comes out on our squeaky clean street instead of their front door on the ocean front avenue where the Big Muck was being scooped up.

Normal? The post office was open, as were the banks. Nearly all the coffee shops and restaurants and a surprising number of shops. "...returning to normal...," the man said. We're not quite there yet. Will it ever be normal again?

The question came up after 9/ll, and we are back to normal now. It's normal to have to limit and separate liquids when we fly, take off our shoes, get patted down, and most likely be full body x-rayed in the near future. Normal, now. But what is normal?

Perhaps "normal" is merely what we are used to seeing and expect to experience.

In some ways we see death as "normal"...everyone dies sooner or later. In Biblical terms, however, death is not the normalcy God originally intended. His plan of redemption is to return us to the original state of normalcy: close, constant fellowship with Him forever, with no death.

In our personal lives, we can come to accept sin as "normal"...everyone does it. In Biblical terms, sin is only normal because we are fallen creatures, fallen from the original "normal" state of sinlessness. But we accept sin and death as normal.

In today's world we have returned to normal after 9/11, but it is not the "normalcy" of pre-9/11. In Funchal, on Madeira, we will return to normal. But it will never be what was normal before Saturday. We will return to nOrmAl, or NorMaL, or NOrMal, and whichever it is, in time it will become normal.

Bank Account Information for Aid to Storm Victims

As I wrote in an earlier post we are not undertaking a fund-raising campaign for people affected by the storms. There are many such campaigns and aid programs underway. But some people have already left money specifically for this purpose and others have indicated their desire to send money in aid to victims to be used in the name of the church. For that reason we have made an account available that will be used exclusively for this purpose. The church is aware of her responsibility to use these funds with discernment for the glory of the Lord, helping others in need in the best possible way.

Name of Account Holder: Igreja Baptista do Funchal
Bank transfers within Portugal,
NIB: 0007 0000 00701673266 23

International Bank Transfers:
IBAN: PT50 0007 0000 0070 1673 2662 3
SWIFT/BIC: BESCPTPL

Now for the hard part

The death toll for the moment is stationary, but no one will be surprised when it goes up. The homeless are in the hundreds, and those who still have homes but lost furnishings and appliances to the mud and water are multiplied hundreds. For those so directly affected by Saturday's storm, perhaps the worst is over, at least in terms of fear and panic. Perhaps what lies ahead is as bad in its own way for many of them: fear and despair.

For the hundreds of thousands like us (the island population is around 260,000), the storm may have meant little more than mopping up rain water coming in through a broken tile or blown under the door or around the windows. Otherwise there was nothing to do, except sit down and wait it out. Now for the hard part: to get up and work it out.

The storm lasted hours, the next phase will last months. The downtown part of Funchal is still closed down, except for cleaning crews. Our consular services are being handled from home, and the work goes on.

By early Monday morning we had a list of American citizens whose family or friends were concerned because they had heard nothing from them since the storm hit. They contacted the State Department in Washington or the Embassy in Lisbon, and it was up to us to find out if they are indeed here and indeed alive and well. Some cases were resolved fairly quickly; the last two "missing" persons on the list took a bit longer. It was only this afternoon we had confirmation of their whereabouts and safety, but I had been to the morgue this morning to make sure that the unidentified cadaver mentioned in the newspaper was not one of the persons being sought. Thankfully, it was not. (Clarification: I did not have to view the body; it had been identified in the meantime before I got there. Thankfully.)


The Hard Part--for me

Independently of the US aid coming through governmental channels, which I am being asked to help direct to the proper recipients, in accordance with the specific parameters of the aid in question, there is the separate matter of money that has been offered to the church by individuals for distribution in the church's name. In the face of these promised donations, we, as a church, are aware of our responsibility to use such funds wisely and to the glory of God. Strict accounting in their receipt; wise discernment in their distribution. Accountability to God and man.


Designated Funds for Aid

I have asked our treasurer to speak with the bank and determine the most suitable way of handling the funds people feel led to give. This is not an appeal for funds. But if you feel led to give, we will seek in every way possible to use them to aid those in need and demonstrate the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.

As soon as I have specific details regarding the best way for money to be sent, I will provide the necessary information.

Oh, yes... Thanks to all those who sent e-mails and patiently waited a day or two to hear from me. I think I caught up tonight.

Monday night -- new count, confirmed resolution

The new count:

The official death toll is still at 42, but the number of missing has been revised to 32.

More numbers:

Today's newspaper was estimating the task ahead, just in terms of clearing the three stream beds that empty into the bay of Funchal. The amount of stone and debris that have to be cleared is estimated to require 13,000 trips by big dumptrucks. The volume: 200,000 cubic meters. Assume a football field/pitch a 100 yds.(or 100 meters) long--there is a difference but we won't quibble here--and 50 yds/mts wide...pile up rocks for 130 ft (40m)--around 13 storeys high)--and that will give you an idea of the quantity of material they're talking about.




The confirmed resolution:

As with all the other businesses downtown, we will not be operating the consular services from our office for an indefinite period of time. My two colleagues and I will rely on cell phones and e-mail to "work together apart," each from our own home. As required and/or advisable, one of us will drop by to check on things and pick up any information needed for the current tasks, but getting to and from the center of town is not only complicated, but practically prohibited by the authorities.


Meanwhile phone calls and e-mails from all over continue to come in, with many offers of aid. We pray for wisdom in the use of any aid that comes our way, and in accordance with James 1:5 we must believe God will give us the wisdom we seek.

No pictures this update

It's early afternoon here, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, and it's raining. Not hard. Not steady. That's here on the SE side of the island.

No pictures because we haven't left the house, and we haven't had TV all morning. At some point in the night the cable TV connections to the east of Funchal were cut, so that this half of the island is without television.

What we know at the moment comes from the radio and from phone calls with my colleagues in the consulate, who decided to go into town to check for messages on the phones.

General information: 42 dead, 4 missing, 400 homeless.

Eyewitness information:

1) Ana and Trudy could not get all the way downtown by car. Trudy's son dropped them off and they had to walk in the last 8 blocks or so. Mud everywhere. The seafront avenue still a sea of mud. They were having some difficulty leaving the downtown area on foot, as some streets are closed, even to pedestrian traffic, especially in the areas close to the stream beds, where the roads are in danger of collapsing.

2) José Carlos went down to his office by bus. Well, the buses are letting people off at the top of hill by the Casino. It's a 20-minute walk into town. Clean-up has started downtown; the mayor wants it done within a week. José Carlos says it is impossible to walk down some of the streets, due to all the rocks.

3) One shopping center (Anadia) was completely destroyed by water that poured through it from one street to the other, and the two underground parking levels were flooded. We understood the radio to say this morning that one level had been pumped out, but we think perhaps the -2 level still had water. No victims found so far, according to the report.

4) Another new, large shopping center near the other stream (Dulce Vita) is also closed. I think there are three underground levels of parking, all filled with water, and the lowest level of the shops (food court and supermarket) had 2 meters of water in it. One of our church members was at work there when the waters came in, but she was on the third level up. Her husband had taken her to work and parked the car, which is something he doesn't usually do. When the rains got heavier and some water started coming in, he took the car out with minutes to spare.

We have a Bible study later tonight, and I'm thinking of trying to see how close I can get to the office then.

Sunday night update

First of all, our deep gratitude to God for the e-mails and phone calls that have been coming from all over Europe and the US. Much of what you see on YouTube is part of what we've been seeing on TV... We still have not been into the center of Funchal ourselves, as the authorities are asking people to avoid the downtown areas. Pictures of some of the streets shown on the TV explain why. Many of the streets are irrecognizable, strewn with rocks or buried in mud. One of the principal streets is filled with stones which have left the tops of cars barely visible. The layer of stones is at least 4 feet deep.

Pastor Moiséis filmed from the top of their apartment building and commented on what he saw. If you don't know Portuguese, I'll summarize by saying he specifically mentions the three locations where the rock walls of the creek bed were destroyed and left craters in the street. You can see that video here.

We were able to get to church by a long detour, which passed right by this location. The exit to our church was still closed today, due to crews clearing debris and wrecked cars. Attendance was about 50% today, but we're thankful for those who made it. We were able to confirm that there were no personal injuries among the members; property damage was limited to two automobiles that got flooded with muddy waters, but were not washed away, and Sis. Fernanda will have to replace the flooring in her house after getting up to 6" of water throughout her place.

Our brothers and sisters at the Assembly of God were not so fortunate. Pastor César called to say that one of their members was swept away by raging waters, as her husband was unable to grab her arm.

As of tonight, the death toll is 42. An update is to be given at noon tomorrow.

Here are the latest pictures I took this afternoon in the area of the church.

STREET SCENES
Click on photos to enlarge.

When we crossed this intersection on the way to church, there was still a log lying halfway across it. When we walked over after the morning service, the log was gone, but the rocks weren't.









The force of the waters twisted metal around sign posts and left odd arrangements of debris.








UP THE HILL A BLOCK

Remember the photo in the first posting about the storm?





This was what we saw in the same location this afternoon:




The front wall of the house had been knocked out by the force of the waters coming from the mountainside behind:




The path of destruction:



Starting at the top, remember the car in a previous post?




This is it from the other side, in an enlargement of the top center of the picture above:




In the center of this picture, you see the roof of the second house which was destroyed as the water roared down the hill, pushing everything in front of it. Then the lower house with the front wall knocked out. To the left of the house you can just make out some men in orange suits.




In this close-up you can see they're walking over a car that washed down in between the houses, as the wheel of the car is very visible:



As I stood watching, I realized they were trying to pull a body from the car. A group of men on the high wall behind tugged on a rope and pulled the body free, then brought it through the house, laid it on the terrace and covered it with a sheet.



Then a man went off and brought back a bottle of clear water, who was handed a wallet taken from the body. He opened the mud-covered wallet and washed off the documents so the policeman standing beside him could radio in the ID of one more victim.




Before I left my vantage point, I noticed that on the right side of that same house, there was another car wedged in the space between houses, and that the gate at the bottom of the stairs kept more debris from washing out into the street.



I didn't stick around to see if there was a body to be retrieved from that car.

Now as I sit here writing this, I hear the wind blowing and the rain hitting the windows of my study. Fortunately, it is a light rain.

More pictures from Orlando

The seafront avenue:






Two downtown commercial areas, under 4 or 5 feet of water:






At one point, it was impossible to distinguish between the course of the stream(normally a practically dry bed, over 20 feet below the level of the street) and the street itself.

One more picture

Orlando sent one more picture, this one taken just below the intersection with the expressway shown in the previous post. The water threw this car into the wall and continued on, eventually pouring out over the roof of the pizza place, as shown in the newspaper photo in the first posting about the storm (32 Dead).

Pictures from the area of the church

Our church is one block to the right at this intersection. This street was the scene of a lot of destruction.




The problem started higher up, under the expressway...




...and swept cars down onto the intersection where we get off the expressway to go down to the church.



Some of the cars ended up at the bottom of the street...




and not even fire department vehicles were immune.





Photos by Bro. Orlando da Costa, who lives just a few houses away from the church.

32 Dead

That's the current death toll from the storm that hit the island, starting around 3 a.m. Over the course of the morning we lost contact with everyone, even here on the island. It was only in the late afternoon that we had electricity and telephone, and several hours later, internet and e-mail. I have two cell phones, one personal and one official through the consulate. The server for my private phone lost its signal in our area, and by using the official phone and the other service provider we got out a message to Pastor Moiséis and to José Carlos that we were OK.

The news of the church members has been trickling in, as the phone lines and cell phone circuits are jammed, but once in a while a call comes in or one gets out.

Our church is located in one of the hardest hit areas. This picture was taken about two blocks above our church, appearing on the local newspaper site. A taxi was swept off the road and into a house just around the curve above this location. Down the street (literally, downstream) there were half a dozen cars carried away and piled in a heap of junk metal. At the interchange above this location, the one we use to come off the freeway to our church, three or four cars had been swept off the mountainside over the 30-foot embankment, landing in the middle of the intersection. There were a number of large trees mixed in, also. We hope the road is cleared by morning. If not, we will have to go to the next exit and work our way back to the church.



As far as we can tell, there were no injuries or heavy property loss among our church members. Members who have been to the church today say that there was no damage to the property.

Our gratitude to all who have called or e-mailed us this evening, especially from Europe, as the news is broadcast in countries that have a lot of tourist trade with Madeira. Your prayers are appreciated, not just for us, but for this island God has placed us on to be a witness to His truth, grace and salvation.

It was January 2

Sunday morning, a visitor, one of the many tourists who come to Madeira every year and visit us during their holidays, told me she checked the website/blog on a regular basis, and she had noticed I hadn't blogged in a while: "Your last blog was January 2," she said. I wouldn't have been able to say when my last blog was, but she was right.

[Note regarding visitors to the blog: I did a search on Google to see how we're doing. madeira baptist (no quotation marks) gets us in the top 10 hits, the first page of search results. baptist church madeira (no quotation marks) puts us in #3 spot. Include the word funchal with baptist church, in any order, and we're in the top spots, of course.]

Moiséis and family

One piece of good news in the last month was Pastor Moiséis getting his residence authorization. At a time when the immigration services are cracking down on illegal immigrants, and we've heard about several people who came from Brazil to do mission work having great difficulty getting authorization to stay in Portugal, this is evidence to us of God's leading.

The Work Grows

The increasing number of opportunities to minister was one of the reasons we prayed for God to send someone to help us. We could not follow up on all the leads. The Monday night meeting we have had for the past year on the other side of the city continues to grow. This week there were 37 at the meeting, and most of them do not come to the church services on Sunday.

Pastor Moiséis has also started a Thursday night meeting for couples in the same location, and the attendance is about the same as on Monday night. Meanwhile, Abbie and I are going out to Roy and Dawn's house about 30 min. west of Funchal to hold English-language Bible studies on Thursday afternoons. In recent years there has been a great migration of English-speaking families, most but not all of whom British, who have moved into that area. Most of these people do not speak Portuguese, so the gospel must be taken to them in English. There is a nucleus of three or four families from our church in that area, who are burdened to reach their neighbors. We look forward to greater things ahead.

R.I.P.

These flowers, currently brightening the dining room, were given to me on Saturday, Feb. 13. Obviously, whoever gave them to me had some romantic notions in presenting me with this bouquet, even though it WASN'T Valentine's Day. The way in which the flowers were given and encountered, however, leaves room for wondering about subliminal messages.

First of all, the timing of my encounter with the flowers: it was just about 12 o'clock noon, and I had just gotten out of bed. I was almost awake. Before you make some remark to yourself about "what a lazy fellow he is!" (Too late, you already thought it.), I will explain that I had gone to bed at 4 AM. Before you make another remark to yourself about "that carousing no-good who stays up until the wee hours of the morning and then can't get up at a decent time" (Too late, you already thought that, too.), let me say that I had been proofreading and revising a translation job--for 30 hours, non-stop. Beginning at around 10 PM Thursday night and packing it in just before 4 AM on Saturday, I had taken a couple of 20-minute breaks for a bite to eat on Friday. By Friday afternoon, I was cruising on auto-pilot. As I sat down to eat a sandwich, I told Abbie that, at that moment, I could not, for the life of me, tell her what the subject of the document was. My mind was enveloped in a dense fog. I could remember a phrase or two, but I could not remember the subject matter.

A colleague had asked me to check the English translation of a 170-page book on premature babies she had to turn in by Friday night, New York time. Why and how she had gotten herself into this situation, I don't know. I do know the manuscript was full of errors and there were lines, paragraphs, and even pages that had not been translated. It was in that state of mind (or, mindlessness) that I had gone to bed at 4:00, and "woken up" 8 hours later at noon.

The location of the flowers: I walked into my office area and the bouquet was lying across the keyboard of my still-open laptop.

Thought #1: My computer couldn't take it, either, and had processed its last words. Flowers were laid across its keys as a final tribute.

Thought #2: Abbie had strangled my laptop and commemorated her victory over technology with a bouquet.

Thought #3: The next day being Valentine's Day and a Sunday, Abbie had made her romantic gesture a day early, putting the flowers in the one place where she knew I would find them.

Turns out #3 was correct, but I'll bet it went down to the wire with #2.

Fortunately, I didn't wake up to find the flowers lying across my chest.