Your prayers must be working as we have had two days of almost no rain! There was a small storm last night, but so far nothing today. We were back in San Miguel today evaluating the damage to the families most affected by the rains. There are still 5 families living at the church there and we have made plans to replace or repair their homes so they can get back into them. If the rain continues to let up, then I would imagine that everything can get back to normal (as if that is a good thing!).

The local paper is saying that there are 8 dead, 4 wounded, over 400 evacuated to shelters, and almost 200 homes destoyed with many more damaged. These figures are purely a guess as we have seen no one in the various communities actually counting, but I am glad that the news is out there. The kicker is that it is probably politically motivated as the only help has been coming from candidates running for various elctions. The big shovel they sent into dig out the river in San Miguel was plastered with posters of Ricardo, a local mayoral candidate. I am left wondering if any help would have come if this were not an election year. Reality is the help was there even if for lousy motives. So be it.

We had a group of 60 or so people leave today and the next group arrives on Wednesday with another overlapping group arriving on Friday. There will be about 160 here in total. We should have plenty of help to begin to get done what has to be done.

I continue to be so amazed at the faith of the people we deal with in the mountains. There is a dependence on God that is amazing. They totally believe that God will provide where they can't. I continue to pray that my faith could grow to that point.