Flood update

Well, Chiang Mai has been battling mud and repairing flood damage for the past month. The worst flood wave hit on Oct. 3rd when the Ping River reached all time highs, and the various flood zones were all breached. No one knew quite where the water would go after that, and it wasn’t good. Thankfully, our side of the city didn’t flood, so we had no personal destruction to deal with, which enabled us to be of service helping those who did. We had to wait a few days for the water to subside before cleanup efforts could get underway.

​I started by joining a group of volunteers who were coordinating relief efforts, and on Oct. 9th a small group of us went to where the flood level was the highest – about 7 feet, so it destroyed everything on the first level of people’s homes. Those who only have one-level homes lost basically everything to the water and mud. The houses themselves stood strong though because everything is built out of cement here. Some of the streets were piled with debris and garbage such that you could even drive a motorcycle down them, so we worked to create a path wide enough for a pickup to navigate, and then made a path to each family’s door so they could enter without walking across the garbage piles. The city municipality has taken weeks to follow up to clear streets because they just can’t keep up with all the needs simultaneously.

Our church building was flooded about waist-deep on the lowest level. The Juniper Tree missionary guest house was flooded about chest-deep. As a family we were able to spend  some days helping those locations with cleanup as well.

​Within our church, I’ve been heading up an organized group connecting members with cleanup needs with volunteers within the church who could help. We also looked outside our membership and made cleanup volunteers available to the neighborhoods in which we live.

One benefit to this kind of destruction is that I saw it pull people together across racial lines, income levels, and also believers and non-believers working together towards a common goal. We’ve been able to use some of the funds we’ve been blessed with to donate to relief efforts – we’ve purchased mattresses and cooking stoves for people who’ve lost theirs. We also bought food and bottled water which were then delivered by boat during the time right after the floods when there were people trapped in their neighborhoods and couldn’t leave to get supplies.

On a more personal note, my parents came to visit in October, and it was a great blessing to have grandma and grandpa with us! Also, Faith (Inspire homeschool helper) has moved into her own place and has already been a great blessing to the two families she’s serving, and to us as well. I can talk more about that in a future post though.

Until next time,
-Lance, for the Baker family