natural disasters

Many of you have been asking about Hurricane Felix, and the damage it caused here. We were lucky enough to have escaped its destruction. Everything near where we are was safe. The majority of Honduras ended up fine, with the exception the northeastern tip, La Mosquita, which boarders with Nicaragua, where the damage took place.

However, within days and weeks following the hurricane, we saw days on end of heavy rains. As the people in Tegucigalpa, and surrounding areas, were no longer on "hurricane warning", the extreme flooding that took place was rather unexpected. Several markets in the city were swept away, one destroyed just after half an hour of rain. This flooding resulted in several deaths, and others devastated by losing their market stands.

On September 15, about 60km north of the Ranch, the earth shook... scale of 5.2. Morales, the area that was shaken by the quake, is a rural area, where nearly all inhabitants were left without homes. We're working with the Catholic Medical Mission Board in Tegucigalpa, trying to set up some type of aid for these people. Hopefully sometime within the next couple weeks, we'll be making a trip there.

--the photo above is a tree on the Ranch, that was uprooted by all of the rain that we've had over the past couple weeks. due to the heavy rains, several trees around here have fallen. one in front of the volunteer house actually fell on top of one of the new volunteers as she was passing by. luckily, the tree got caught on the house, so it was only the smaller branches that actually hit her. but man, what a surprise to be walking back to your house, in the dark, and out of nowhere a tree falls on you...--