Rain is normal this time of year in West Bengal, India. In fact, the staff at the LOT Home routinely stock pile rice in the spring to be kept for the monsoon season just in case food becomes difficult to obtain. Three days ago, at 8:30 p.m. lightning was blazing in the dark night sky. Jonathan and Laxmi, the administrators of the LOT home, as well as other staff, stared up at the sky discussing the weather. Though there was a brief reprieve from the rain, they had an inkling there would be a downpour. The children were told to use the toilet and brush their teeth so they could go to bed early. At 9 p.m. the rain started and it soon became a deluge. For 7 hours the relentless rain came down in sheets, the heaviest rain Jonathan has ever seen. At the predawn hour of 4, all was quiet; the rain had stopped temporarily but not without destruction.
At one place, down the road from the LOT Home, one can see the whole of the area. Because Relli is located in a mountain valley, the roads coming and going are twisting and steep in many places. Between the pounding of the rain and the flooding the road is washed away in four spots in both directions. The Kalimpong Engineering Department came out immediately to clear the road but excessive rain resumed causing the road to become a river. The clearing of debris has been postponed.
In a nearby village where Jonathan was born, a neighbor of his father was returning home after laboring in the fields. The man (one of many) was washed away by a mudslide. His body was discovered the following day wedged between two boulders. The family is Hindu and according to their custom, there is a 13 day ritual of cleansing the home in preparation for the funeral. When the weather clears enough for safe travel, Jonathan and Laxmi will visit the family to see if there is anything they can do to help.
In their usual effort to preempt inflated prices in case the monsoons destroy the rice crop, Jonathan purchased 3,000 pounds of rice earlier this year when the prices were low. It takes a large amount of food to feed 100 people! This year the rain has been different from past times, as it has been virtually uninterrupted, so the 125 pound bags of rice were brought into the study hall, laid out in a single layer on the wooden floor to allow for air circulation to prevent the rice from molding. Even with these precautions much of the rice is ruined due to the heat and humidity. And the rain continues…
There is a momentary closing of schools, including the LOT School, due to the unprecedented weather.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the Rock.” Matthew 7: 24, 25. Please pray for God’s continued protection of those at the LOT Home and the surrounding area.