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World Vision Prepares for El Niņo
World climate experts at a United Nations-sponsored conference in late August predicted that the "El Niņo" weather pattern currently brewing in the Pacific Ocean may be the worst of its kind in more than 150 years.
If their prediction holds true, this year's system could do more damage than the cataclysmic El Niņo of 1982-83, which, according to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, claimed 30,000 lives and caused $13 billion in damage worldwide.
Although the worst effects will not be felt until late December, World Vision is actively preparing to mitigate the impact of El Niņo on those communities in Latin America and Southern Africa expected to be hardest hit by flooding, drought, and the spread of disease.
Flood Preparation
This year's El Niņo flexed early. In June, a devastating flood swept through parts of Chile. By August, swollen coastal rivers in Ecuador had flooded nearly 10,000 acres of rice, vegetables, and other crops and washed away sections of major highways.
In anticipation of more severe flooding, World Vision staff in Latin America are working with governments and local communities to build levies, create food reserves, and direct farmers in planting crops that can withstand heavy rains and some flooding.
Drought Survival
Of the weather anomalies created by the El Niņo phenomenon, drought can be the deadliest. During the 1991-92 El Niņo-induced drought, many farmers in central Mozambique suffered complete crop loss.
Small-plot farmers and livestock owners in drought-prone areas of Southern Africa and inland Latin America are already benefiting from World Vision interventions.
Earlier this summer, World Vision began large-scale seed production of crop varieties that mature faster and are more drought tolerant than traditional crops such as corn. This fall, World Vision is distributing "harvest paks" containing almost 50 pounds of these drought-tolerant seeds to farmers in vulnerable countries like Mozambique.
World Vision gives advance-planning assistance to livestock farmers as well. Farmers' early efforts to store up fodder stock provide a better chance of keeping their herds healthy during a drought. For farmers who cannot create a fodder-stock reserve, World Vision advises selling livestock while they are healthy.
Checking the Spread of Disease
Unlike a drought’s plodding onset, diseases during an El Niņo year can pounce on a community. This threat looms the fiercest in South America where unusually warm and wet weather can create malaria, dengue fever, and cholera outbreaks. It took just three weeks during a mild El Niņo in 1991 for cholera to advance 1,200 miles up the Pacific coastline of South America.
Field staff are working with local health authorities in Central and South America to conduct immunization campaigns in vulnerable areas.
Please pray for our field staff as they quickly work to implement these and other life-saving interventions.
A Tribute to Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa was a beacon of hope, commitment, and obedience in a chaotic and selfish world. On September 5, 1997, that beacon, which emanated from Calcutta and shown brightly in every corner of the world, went dark.
Mother Teresa brought gifts of love and compassion to poor, sick, and oppressed people--people many of us choose to ignore. Her gifts were wrapped in the love of God and, through her efforts, we saw God's work here on earth. She often said that God had not called her to be successful, but rather, "He has only called me to be obedient." We all know she was both.
Her obedience was both liberating and comforting to those of us in the business of helping ease the pain of the world's poor. She worked to address the overwhelming suffering, widespread disease, and senseless and brutal violence, but she also recognized that God is and always will be in control.
The images of this small, frail-looking nun either bathing a man with leprosy or meeting with a man in the Oval Office will inspire people for generations to come. At a time when many Americans increasingly are turning their attention inward on domestic problems, Mother Teresa beckoned us outward to see, to feel, and to respond to the needs of society’s outcasts.
Mother Teresa has always been on the side of angels. Now she has joined them.
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