“This is something that I’ve never experienced in my 55 years of life,” Lenora shared while looking out over the remnants of her coastal neighborhood. Sweat dripped from her brow as she stood under her battered metal roof. It offered little relief from the heat.
A somber confetti of pastel-colored fragments were scattered along the dirt road in front of Lenora’s home. These were what is left of many of the island’s distinctly painted homes that had once made the island such a bright, vibrant place.
“I cried for days,” Lenora confessed as she considered what her family and her homeland had lost less than a week ago. “I had a breakdown.”
On Monday, July 1, Beryl broke records as the earliest Category 4 storm to form in a calendar year. It was also the strongest storm on record to strike this part of the southern Caribbean. At least eight people lost their lives.
In some communities, devastation was total. Homes, schools, and businesses were destroyed. Thousands of families were left homeless and with nowhere to turn for help.
Within 24 hours, Samaritan’s Purse had already responded with a DC-8 airlift carrying relief and personnel to the region. Three more airlifts followed.
Now, barely a week after the storm, we are serving in Grenada, Jamaica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We’ve established an Emergency Field Hospital to serve Grenada’s Carriacou communities. We continue to provide thousands of gallons of clean water each day, and we’re distributing essentials such as shelter tarps, hygiene items, solar lights, and cooking kits.
Smaller medical teams are operating clinics on multiple islands and our helicopter pilots are sling-loading supplies across the islands.
Most important, though, is that we’re sharing the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and reminding people that God has not forgotten them.
People like Lenora need to hear this word of hope from our team and church partners. The disaster has taken a toll on her family. Her 87-year-old mother, who lives next door, had lost most of her home. She had friends and other family who’d lost everything. As she talked, her niece, standing nearby, became visibly upset, emotions that most everyone in her community were likely holding back in order to get through the days ahead without falling apart.
“When you look at this–when you have to face this when you get up every morning,” Lenora said. “We don’t know when this place is going to come back together. We don’t know how long [it will take.]”
For much of Canouan now, life has become defined by the search for water, shelter, food, medical care while holding the grief at bay. It’s not even been a week since Beryl. They’re trying to bravely face the reality that what was taken in mere minutes, the homes and communities established many generations ago, is now gone forever.
As our response continued to expand over the past week, extending relief to multiple islands, Samaritan’s Purse worked through faithful church partners. These Christian leaders on the island, pastors and others who’ve worked with Operation Christmas Child, added invaluable speed to our efforts by connecting us quickly with the greatest needs and the best ways to meet them.
They helped conduct training for their congregations, weighed in on distribution plans, and multiplied our opportunities for sharing the love of Jesus Christ, though they themselves were facing their own losses and exhaustion.
This is how we met Lenora. Our teams brought her shelter tarp, hygiene kits, and other supplies, along with the compassion and patience that her grieving heart needed in that moment.
“God sent you guys here, and God opened a way that you could come and give to us,” Lenora expressed. “We just thank God for life, because with Him all things are possible.”
Though heartbroken and only now allowing themselves to begin grieving, the many islanders like Lenora acknowledge God’s presence, even while standing in the rubble of where their homes had been.
One elderly woman we served reminded us of this–God’s faithfulness and provision in the midst of terrible circumstances. She clutched the few items we’d given her, and as we walked away she whispered: “I prayed that God would send us a Good Samaritan, and He has.”
Please continue to pray for the countless families suffering throughout the Caribbean islands and now in Texas. Please also pray for our teams as we serve hurting communities with physical relief and with the truth and hope found only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Willing to serve on a Disaster Assistance Response Team? We are looking for Christian Medical and Non-Medical Staff!
If you are interested in joining our DART roster to be a part of these types of disaster responses, Click Here to Apply.
Samaritan's Purse responds to the urgent needs of families devastated by the wind, rain, and storm surge of catastrophic hurricanes. Whether internationally or here in Canada, we bring emergency relief and practical help in the Name of Jesus Christ to hurting people.