Relief Efforts

At the Venezuela branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses, relief efforts began as soon as word of the disaster was received. However, roads were either cluttered with debris or simply washed away. After a few days, one lane of the main highway was opened for emergency use, and Witness vehicles carrying medical supplies and qualified personnel were allowed through. An official later said: “The government is well aware that Jehovah’s Witnesses were among the first to arrive with help and to take people away from the area.”

The Witnesses organized searches to find those needing help. Transportation was arranged to take evacuees to Caracas, where many arrived with nothing. Collection points were set up in the city so that food, clothing, and medicine could be distributed to people in need. But most of them needed more than food and clothing. They desperately needed a place to live. Their Christian brothers gladly took them in.

Even long after the disaster, people had friends and relatives living with them. Joel and Elsa, Witnesses in Puerto Cabello, live in a small apartment. A month after the storm, they still had 16 people living there with them. Many had lost not only their homes but also their jobs. Their places of work simply no longer exist.

[Pictures on page 18]

1. Volunteers gathered relief supplies in Caracas

2, 3. The Maiquetía Congregation removed hardened mud that was seven feet deep from their Kingdom Hall

4. These Witnesses lost their homes and then volunteered to build new ones for themselves and others

5. One of the nearly completed homes in San Sebastián de los Reyes