Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Pray for Australia

Just a brief interuption from the normal content to request prayer for my country, Australia

While Australia tends to often have droughts at the moment we are getting a lot of rain. Way too much rain in some cases. Although there was predictions that there would be floods in my area, thankfully my area has remained flood free so far. Others have not been so fortunate. Flooding is taking place in several states but by far the worst hit is Queensland, the state in the north east of the country.

The news coming out of Queensland is quite scary. The floods have been so intense in places that they have been described as being like an inland tsunami. Houses, cars and people in their path don't stand much of a chance as some of the horror movie like footage coming from the area makes graphically clear. People have been killed and many many houses destroyed in a number of towns across the region. Worryingly the water is still rising  in the state capital Brisbane where it is thought tens of thousands of houses could be flooded. That's a lot of people homeless. Then there is all the damage to businesses, community facilities and infrastructure. Very nasty stuff.

Please pray
  • That the floodwaters would not rise as much as expected and that many homes would be spared. 
  • For those who have already had their houses flood, many of whom are no win emergency evacuation centers.
  • For those who have lost loved ones in the floods
  • For rescue teams who have the difficult task of looking for the dead and wounded. 
  • For those involved the emergency respone. 
  • For  leaders such as Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Queensland state premier Anna Bligh.
  • That the resources needed to help the suffering and rebuild would be available. 
  • That the Christian community would respond in a sensitive and helpful way to this tragedy and that the small section of the Christian community here that is prone to responding in an insensitive manner to disasters would not gain attention for their views. 

If you would like to follow what has happened, you can do so at The Age or ABC online

If you wish to make a donation to help flood victims you can do so via the Premier’s Disaster relief appeal