One of my many favorite passages of Scripture is found in Hebrews 10:23:
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:23-25
Our world today is in great trouble. It’s not just the very real threat of WW3 but the gathering storm of world-wide diseases, wide-spread drought, famines, chaotic weather patterns, major geological changes, and even incoming threats from the cosmos. There is an unmistakable convergence of events upon us. As we see these things, the importance of the verses above cannot be underestimated! We are on the threshold of that “Approaching Day.”
For displaced populations trying to survive in refugee camps as across the Middle East today, the immediate threat they are facing, is cholera. I have mentioned this in the previous two updates but will speak to the subject again. What was contained in five refugee camps spread to ten camps, at least according to the last report I received. The problem is that ten camps is just a very small percentage of the total number of refugee camps there are. The average camps have somewhere between 10,000 – 15,000 or more people in them.
Pastor R told me that a number of the HOB missionaries went out to the camps that had people infected with cholera and told them that money needs to be raised so that wheat and clean water can be ordered and brought into the camps. This would eliminate the need for picking the vegetables in the fields that were contaminated with bad water. Cholera usually comes from contamination by raw sewage. The camps were told that without the supplies, a great many people would certainly die.
Money was raised and there was enough to purchase 10 truck loads of wheat and about 220 truckloads of clean water. I was told that loads of water were purchased for about the equivalent of $100 USD each. These are being distributed throughout the camps (at latest report, now 20 camps). In order to make the food last longer, the refugees are eating every other day and fasting on the days in between.
There are hundreds of people infected with cholera and unfortunately the death count is rising quickly. This means there are many needing to be buried as quickly as possible.
The House of Blessing missionaries are hoping to put four tractors to work in each camp to destroy the tainted vegetables and grasses. They also hope to bury and burn the existing bathroom pits and construct new clean ones, making sure to locate them a sufficient distance from the tent cities. It is an enormous undertaking, but the United Nations is nowhere to be seen as of late. The people will have to do it for themselves if it is going to be done.
Let’s continue to pray for these brave missionaries as they do what they can to intervene in this most grave situation. HOB is working around the clock.
As always, at the same time that the House of Blessing does what it can to feed as many as they can and provide clean water which the people are most desperate for, the Good News of the Gospel is being shared. They continue to go from tent to tent, explaining God’s free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, answering lots of questions, and praying with the people. Hundreds of entire families continue to be brought in every week!
I would like to conclude with a thought coming from a devotional I read a couple days ago…
There is an end to this journey we are on! The end of Moses’ life came as he went up the mountain to catch his first glimpse of the Promised Land before he went to be with God. The Israelites eventually finished their journey through the wilderness. We also will finish our journey through the wilderness of this life, the completion of our earthly existence and the passing away of this world. We must always leave the old before we can enter into the new. And we bear reminding that this life is not the destination, but the journey to the destination. So, live your life and every moment of your life in light of that, in light of the end, in light of the day when the old will flee away, and of your first glimpse of that of which you had only dreamed…
Forever in His Service,
Jake Geier