Auntie Em, Auntie Em, It's a Twister!!!

If you've seen (or read) The Wizard of Oz, you'll recall the "the twister" that marauds the little Kansas farm and transports Dorothy to the magical land of Oz. As a result, when I hear about such things as cyclones, tornados or hurricanes (especially having grown up in Arkansas, in the middle of so called "Tornado Alley"), my mental vision goes all black and white and I see young farm girls racing with their dogs to storm shelters in their home farms and think about wicked witches riding broom sticks in the winds.

But if you have loved ones on their way to India right now, you've probably tuned in to the fact that a Cyclone (Cyclone Thane -- see article on CNN here) hit the Southeast part of the country near the town of Pondicherry last night, and you're wondering if that's going to affect our team currently en route. I actually woke up this morning to a text from Raj (our in-country contact and Director of Life Mission) telling me that it took he and Prema 10 hours to drive to Chennai from Trichy just because of the rainfall fallout from Thane and the subsequent traffic jams that resulted. While we'll keep you posted on what happens as we go, i thought i would let you know the following so far:

Good News: The cyclone has mostly dissipated in its force. It did hit the city of Pondicherry, which is in Tamilnadu on the Southeast coast, but where our team is operating this time is (about 120 miles) farther to the northwest and in the interior of the country. We will keep everyone posted if this has an impact on where or how the team lands in Chennai, but as they are still currently in the air, we don't have any new information about that yet.

Bad News: Assuming that the cyclone has dissipated enough to not be a problem for the team landing in Chennai, they will still most likely have to contend with a ton of rain for the week as they seek to engage the community. With the addition of the new KC3 (Kalavai Colony Community Center), they'll at least have good shelter to do their activities indoors, but without the ability to go outside for many of the things planned, it will make things an interesting challenge for the week.

Commitment: We always say this when we have teams overseas, but it bears saying again. We are committed to prioritizing our team's safety at whatever the cost may be. Each of our team leaders has the authority and backing to simply extract their entire team at a moment's notice if they feel that it is wise to do so, and has the autonomy and resources (financial and otherwise) to do so as well. Raj and Prema and our team leaders are all highly experienced veterans and amazing leaders with a high bias for ensuring our teams' safety, and communicate consistently with us while they are in-country. Our team leaders carry a satellite phone (so that even if every phone line in the country went down, they could continue to communicate with us here) with solar charge system (so that even if every power grid in the country went down, they could still ensure that they could keep phones and other critical systems charged), and our staff here Stateside keep our phones on at all times in order to be responsive should an emergency arise.

We'll continue to stay vigilant over the course of the next several hours and days, and will value your prayers for the team and their mission in-country over the course of the next week.