The Hundred Year Flood

Well... the title might be an exaggeration, but that's what my Thai neighbor called it. The flooding in Chiang Mai this past month, was definitely the worst recorded in 50 years. The flooding came in two waves. During the first wave, most of our neighbors' homes were effected, but our home dwas okay. We spent some time going around the neighborhood to help our neighbors and drain water from the community boys' home. We had Adam's parents, Pete and Jo, in town which was such a nice visit and they were able to help with the first flood response. They flew out the night before the second round of flooding though.

On Friday, October 4th, our community was busy all day and all night running between our office, our staff homes (6 families out of the country), and our own homes, trying to rise everything above flood levels in case the water levels got high enough. Beyond just tracking on homes, we also were trying to make sure that our neighborhood and work vehicles were all on higher ground too. There weren't many places nearby that were high enough, so that was another interesting challenge!

We never expected it to get as bad as it got. We thought since our home hadn't flooded during the first round of flooding that we would just have a wet floor at worst. But, by nightfall the water was getting higher and higher on our street and we watched as it slowly started creepy towards our front door.

After preparing neighbor's homes and then our own, we waited and watched as our house begain to fill with water. We set alarms to be checking the water levels through the night. At 1am when the water levels were supposed to be at their peak, Adam went down and saw the water was just reaching the bottom of the furnitre we had raised. By 5am, everything was already under water. It was such a strange thing to wake up to.

Thinking at first that we'd be able to get back to the neighborhood, we packed a day bag and set out as a group of 15 neighbors to try to find breakfast. We had all turned our breakers off so we had no power and no running water. Once we started working our way out of our neighborhood, it was madness. The current was so strong in certain areas and one of our trucks with a snorkle stopped working. We hopped into a different truck and navigated out of slightly lower waters. We spent the day sitting in traffic, looking for a place to eat and an Airbnb we could all stay at for the night. Sitting in the open bed of the truck under the hot sun with kids, a baby, and a friend who had gotten out of the hospital the day before was exhausting. We finally found a cheap hotel nearby and checked in to make a better plan. In the meantime, half of our group went back to the neighborhood on foot (about 5km away) to gather more things and check on homes.

With our houses still under water, there was no way to start clean up. We made a plan for flood response. Over the next couple days our group organized evacuations for several individuals and families. We coordinated a food drive of more than 1,000 meals, snacks, bottled water, and some basic suppplies. We gathered things that floated and bought small boats to deliver everything to our neighbors and into hard to reach areas. We were honestly exhausted, but it felt good to be able to help our neighbors. People were desperate for water. Our neighborhood's housekeeper was in such a difficult area, we walked in waist deep water for over an hour to get to her. She said the water had risen up to their necks the day before and so they waited together on the roof. They hadn't eaten in two days and no rescue workers had come to them yet. We were so grateful for all the donations and resources given to us to be able to help. It really took so many generous people near and far to provide resoures and also to spend many hours coordinating, driving, cooking, etc. Looking around at our group I was just so grateful for the hard work and love that they all offered every day. What a cool team to be a part of.

Returning to our house, I feel like God gave us a lot of grace. We realized our losses little at a time. By the time I realized we had lost the kitchen I was pretty overwhelmed by everything else, but grateful that I had already dealt with the reality of our other losses first. Our friends and family set a Go Fund Me in motion and that has been such a huge encouragement to me and our neighborhood. Knowing that people out there were so caring and generous, and that so many of our needs would be provided for, took such a huge weight off our shoulders. I was truly so touched by the amount of generosity people were showing to us.

Muddy clean up finally began once the water had receeded. Wow, that was so daunting. Again, I felt so incredibly blessed by the amount of love and support from people. Many families from Eden's school jumped into action to help us. Parents I barely even knew and some that I did, volunteered their time to deliver meals and water for distribution, help clean our home and our neighbors, brought snacks, made donations, etc. It was so humbling. It seemed like every time I was standing in my filthy house just looking around and feeling overwhelmed, someone would show up and it would reinvigerate me.

Another really special blessing was when a local friend of mine who works with a foundation, brought 12 youth and a few staff from their children's home program to come help us with clean up in our neighborhood. We had done a large gospel children's program for their foundation (maybe 500 kids) in January and it was such a beautiful picture of how God works- seeing the same students who we had gone to serve in January, coming to serve and love us so practically. (and also so humbling again!) My friend also noticed when she arrived with the students that my refrigerator was broken, so delivered a secondhand one for me as a gift that night.

Well here we are at the present... We bought several storage racks and put everything into boxes since we had to throw away all our furniture downstairs (except the kitchen table and chairs!). We don't have running water or cooking abilities downstairs which is a bummer, but the floor is clean so that feels good. There's so much work ahead but we are putting that on pause as we plan to be away for work and then a USA Christmas trip coming up. It has been such a weird time but despite it all we feel really blessed and loved. Thank you to everyone who prayed, gave, helped, encouraged, and loved us so well during this time. We did NOT feel alone and that was a huge comfort. Locally, we had the added blessing of really getting to know some of our Thai neighbors better. When you go through something hard together like this it really creates a different kind of bond. I'm grateful for how that's deepened our relationships here. And I'm also so excited that already we've gotten to share some of the GoFundMe donations with them to help with some very real needs they have too as rebuilding begins. Thank you God!