Deborah is a 121er serving in SE Asia among Buddhist peoples. Recently a severe cyclone hit her city and the entire area is devastated. Below is an email Deborah sent after finally gaining Internet access from a neighboring country. She has returned to her country and a desperate situation. The death toll is over 30,000 and growing.

121 has sent a few thousand dollars to help with the relief effort. If you would like to provide more, contact Rodney Howell at rodney.howell@121cc.com. Of course, the most important thing we can and must do is pray for the believers there, and that God will redeem this awful situation for His purposes. As you read through her story, please pray for Deborah, other believers, and especially the lost who have been most affected.

Hello! I'm alive!

Thank you so much for all your care and concern. I just arrived in Bangkok today and got access to email and phone (and fresh water... Praise the Lord for water!) I have been touched by all the emails I have received and all the phone calls my parents received to see if I was ok. Thank you!

As most of you probably know by now, my country got hit by a large cyclone. This was my first time to experience such a thing. It lasted for a full 12 hours and the worst part is that most people either didn't know about it or just heard a bad storm was coming. Thankfully, through embassy emails, I heard about it coming but I still didn't expect it to hit my city directly at 120mph winds or for the devastation that it caused.

The storm started around midnight, last Friday and ended about 1 pm on Saturday. The night was spent in the hallway collecting buckets of rain water (electricity and water were cut early on in the storm) to be used later for flushing, bathing, etc. We also tried to stay clear of the windows for fear they would break. Thankfully, my apartment wasn't too bad off during the storm... just lots of debris, dirt and water inside but I didn't have any windows break. My neighbors were not as fortunate. Several of them had broken windows and/or flooding.

The first thing I noticed about my country when I arrived over a year ago were the thick, plentiful trees. The trees were beautiful but this is also what destroyed people's roofs and what killed people in my city. The streets were covered with fallen trees but the military has worked hard at clearing them and now most of the roads are passable at least by one lane of traffic. Strangely, in a land of so many trees, you would think that they have chainsaws. Nope! Most are chopped up by machete.

As of this Thursday, there was still no electricity, phone lines, or city water in my city. Even though there is no city water, many of the buildings in the city have a well. So, as long as you have a generator and gas, you can pump water out of the well. Currently though, gas is rationed and is $10/gallon! So, water comes at a high price. My apartment building is running a generator from 6-8am and 6-9pm to provide some electricity and some water during those hours. The water comes out yellow/brown but I have a filter to clean it for drinking.

The cement homes/buildings survived the storm but most everyone either lost part or all of their roof (including my apartment building). Many of the wood or bamboo homes were completely destroyed. I have many friends that lived in a wood or bamboo home and I have heard that they lost most everything. Unfortunately, with all the trees down and the price of gas, there is little travel being done. Due to travel issues and no phones, we have been unable to connect with most of our local friends. Please pray that we would be able to contact them soon.

I used to call this place the land of the trees! As you can see in the pictures, there are still some trees but not compared to before. Now I see all kinds of houses and buildings that I have never seen before. The "after" picture on the right was taken 5 days after the storm and the roads were already cleared out and some roofs fixed.

Also, please pray for the government to allow international aid into the country. Currently, the price of food is 5 times more, the price of gas has tripled, and water is more too. I can't imagine a local person feeding their family with the amount they make. As a foreigner, I want to help so badly but don't even know where to start.

Please pray for the foreign families too. The stress of providing even the basic necessities for their children has been difficult. They are also facing a tough decision of whether to leave for awhile or stay. Some of the water wells are low and will only last another week. April and May are the the hottest months of year in this country (over 100°F) and with extreme heat and humidity, it is difficult to sleep and get enough water to drink.

I feel that this situation could provide some amazing ministry opportunities if the government will allow. We have plans to help with making water filters (like the kind I drink from) and distributing them for free. The problem is that the water pot/filter factory got partially destroyed during the storm. We need to rebuild before the monsoon rains come (usually towards the end of May) and start mass producing them. Also, we plan on making a special kind of soap that is good to cure lice or scabies or just use as a regular bar of soap. Please pray that we would be able to get the factories going and that we would not have any problems from the government.

Thank you so much for you prayers! Thanks for checking on me and your care.

::Deborah