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Raindrops and mudslides

You are here: Home / Tips / Travel / Guatemala / Raindrops and mudslides

October 4, 2013 //  by michael.shead//  Leave a Comment

This image shows where the road washed away and left a gaping canyon where the road use to be.
This image shows where the road washed away and left a gaping canyon where the road use to be.

In Chichicastenango, it’s finally nearing the end of a tough rainy season that has cost lives and destroyed infrastructure that is vital to the everyday life of the people here.

After getting off to a slow start, the rainy season came on strong in September with torrential rains that swept away more than the lingering dust. As rain-soaked canyon walls gave way they took lives and roadways with them.

This is a different view of the canyon wall that sheared off and dropped some 600 feet to the canyon floor below.
This is a different view of the canyon wall that sheared off and dropped some 600 feet to the canyon floor below.

Early in September four of the Nix family were out scavenging for anything of value in a local trash heap that people had tossed into a deep canyon near the side of a major regional highway.  The family was about 600 feet down in the canyon when the rain-soaked wall collapsed at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Candelaria Mateo Morales, 39; Bartolo Saquic Nix, 23,  and  Julio Tomás Tun Mateo, 5, were killed by the falling debris. A 13-year-old sister escaped the mudslide and made her way up to call for help.

The search for the family was called off due to the instability of the area and risk for more mudslides.

As the local ministry we work with reported, there is hope in this tragedy…

This 13-year-old girl lost her parents and a brother in the mudslide on Sept. 12.
This 13-year-old girl lost her parents and a brother in the mudslide on Sept. 12.
“The 13-year-old girl who survived the landslide but lost her parents and a brother was part of a family that ASELSI has visited and shared the gospel in their home.
When the ASELSI Project coordinator, Angel,  was talking to the girl, her uncle came over to talk to him and said, “You already know the family, you have been in their home before in the village where they live. You guys (ASELSI) have helped them before and have visited this family because they lived in such poor conditions!”
In the middle of the sorrow, that brings us hope that the day when a team from the United States went together with Angel and visited this family, they were able to hear the message of Salvation through Jesus Christ and it is our hope and prayer that now the three of them are with our Father in Heaven!”
Please pray for the orphaned children of this family as we help reach out to them and remind them that their heavenly father hasn’t left them fatherless despite this tragedy.
There have also been other landslides and erosion that is affecting the ministry we work with. The road that leads to ASELSI crosses a narrow dirt bridge just before arriving at the ministry center. After some of the roadway washed out, this roadway is closed to vehicle traffic causing office staff to have to walk past a gaping hole and all supplies have to be carried into the site.
This is the road to ASELSI that washed out due to the rainstorms that have been drenching the region.
This is the road to ASELSI that washed out due to the rainstorms that have been drenching the region.

The ASELSI maintenance crews and other neighbors have started a repair project to make the road usable again but we need prayer for stable ground and safety for the work crews.

Your prayers and financial support help us continue outreaches and respond to tragedies like this one right in the community where we live in Chichicastenango, Guatemala.
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Michael & Chrisi Shead

US Forwarding Address:
2468 Cavalry Rd.
Garland, KS 66741

michael@reachguatemala.org

Skype: mpshead

US: (616) 965-1906

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