As I write, much of the northeastern United States is reeling from Hurricane Sandy, which brought high winds and warm, moist air from the Caribbean. It joined with a “nor’easter,” which brought cold winds from the east, making a particularly devastating storm.

Please join us in prayer for the roughly 50 million people in the area struck by this powerful storm.

• Pray for their safety, for their comfort as they suffer economic losses and often frightening situations, and especially for comfort to the families and friends of those killed or badly injured.
• Pray for patience and mutual helpfulness for the millions of travelers stranded by over 13,000 flight cancellations plus rail and bus cancellations, and for skill, patience, and stamina for the thousands of airline and other transport workers as they labor to get people to their destinations as quickly as conditions permit.
• Pray for the safety of the thousands of emergency workers—police, fire, medical, utility, road repair workers, and others—who are risking their lives and working long, grueling hours to help with recovery.
• Pray especially that Christians in the area will live out the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—serving others with a “peace that passes understanding.”
• Pray that such Spirit-filled living will incite in unbelievers the hunger that only Christ can fill; that believers, constrained by the love of Christ, will respond with clear and bold proclamation of the gospel of Christ; and that God will by His grace give thousands, even millions, of people in the area the gift of faith and repentance, reconciling them to Himself through Christ.
• And don’t forget to pray for the people in Caribbean islands who suffered economic and personal losses when Hurricane Sandy passed through there the week before, leaving at least 69 dead and millions of dollars in damage.

Besides praying, please give, as you are able, to church diaconal ministries that will be responding to the needs.

The most efficient giving might be to deacons’ funds at specific congregations in the area. If you have friends there, ask them how to donate directly to their churches’ relief efforts. If you don’t, you might identify congregations of your denomination in the area through its website and contact them to find out what they’re doing and how you can help. Alternatively, many denominations have their own disaster response agencies; again, you can identify them through their websites.

In addition to your giving and your prayers of petition, thank God that the loss of life and economic devastation were much less than they might have been had America’s northeastern states not been blessed with wealth that is by historical and global standards extraordinary. Such wealth enables them to have homes, businesses, and infrastructure that shield them from harm and equip them to recover far more rapidly than people in poor areas.

In 2008, tropical cyclone Nargis caused 138,000 deaths and $10 billion in damage in Myanmar–0.2 percent of total population and 12.5 percent of GDP. Such losses are common when natural disasters strike poor countries.

In the northeastern United States, things were different.

As of Tuesday night, the brunt of the storm having passed, Sandy’s death toll there was approaching 50, and it is estimated that damage could rise to about $20 billion.

Every death is cause for grief, and economic loss always represents harm to people. But if the rates in the states struck by Hurricane Sandy had matched those in Myanmar, about 2,000 times as many people (about 100,000) would have died, and those states would have suffered about 22 times the economic loss (about $440 billion).

So thank God for the protection He provided through America’s prosperity and join us in praying that the world’s poorest will rise rapidly out of their poverty. Perhaps you’d like to learn how that happens—and how it doesn’t—so you might play a part in it. We recommend three books: Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa; my own Prosperity and Poverty: The Compassionate Use of Resources in a World of Scarcity; and Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert’s When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor … and Yourself.

Thank you for being a friend to the Cornwall Alliance. May God bless you and keep you; may He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may He lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

 

Photo Credit: Sias van Schalkwyk/ Freeimages.com