Kwadima II - Relief supplies to Oro Province

This weekend we sent out the boat on the first of two scheduled relief runs to areas up on the north coast that are trying to recover from Cyclone Guba. Several of the translation teams we support work in areas that were heavily impacted by large-scale flooding. Rivers rose to unprecedented levels taking out large chunks of villages and low lying gardens. Massive rainfall caused mudslides that buried many gardens planted on hillsides. The people in these areas are subsistence farmers relying primarily on their banana, sweet potato, and taro crops to feed their families.

Pray for Maisin people living near the coast, and also the Maiwa people of Biniguni, a village further inland. A first-hand report from the translator in Biniguni village is that the flooding caused 3 deaths, 50 out of 80 houses are gone, the gardens (and the whole village) are buried in about a foot of mud, and the river shifted its course several hundred meters and now runs down the middle of what had been the active airstrip.

Thankfully, some government relief supplies have been brought in. However, that supplemented by the "band-aid" of four tons of rice we took out on this trip are just scratching the surface of what will certainly be a long recovery process.