Help survivors of Tropical Cyclone Freddy in Malawi

“Many people we know personally have lost everything, villages we have visited are completely gone, roads we drove on are now nonexistent,” are the words used by Father Petros Mwale in Malawi to explain the impact of record-breaking Cyclone Freddy in the mission area where he ministers, Blantyre.
Tropical Cyclone Freddy has killed more than 300 people in Malawi, Mozambique, and Madagascar since it first made landfall last month. The toll is expected to rise as authorities continue to assess the damage and count the dead in hard-to-reach areas cut off by floods.
Freddy tore through southern Africa for the second time in a month over the weekend and was still causing heavy rain on Wednesday, hampering relief efforts. In addition, heavy rains are expected to continue in parts of Malawi and will likely cause more floods around lakeshore areas.
“Cyclone Freddy - a record breaking cyclone, longest lasting, highest-EVER recorded energy for a single cyclone: more energy over its lifetime than a whole typical US hurricane season! - hit Malawi, for the second time over the weekend, causing widespread devastation,” said Father Mwale. “At least 200 dead, hundreds missing, countless homes have been destroyed, entire COUNTRY without power, there are not words to express the magnitude of this catastrophe…”
For the past several days, he has been sharing heartbreaking videos and pictures on Twitter, some showing the desperate screams of people being carried away by the water or seeing how their lives and possessions are lost, with entire homes uprooted by the mudslides.
“Most of the pictures, videos, and stories we are hearing are too graphic to share,” he told Missio. “Most of this devastation has happened in the area we focus our work- Blantyre. Many people we know personally have lost everything, villages we have visited are completely gone, roads we drove on are now nonexistent.”
Malawi, a landlocked country in southeastern Africa, is among the poorest in the world, with over half of the population living under the poverty line and a fifth in extreme poverty.
The government is doing what it can to help people, but they need all the support they can get in order to provide clothing, food and shelter. That’s where our network of missionary priests who are on the ground comes in. But they need our support.
"We are using hope as our currency to encourage those who have survived that we will not leave them alone because we are trusting you, as our international neighbors to come through so Malawians can continue with that hope," Father Mwale said.
Can you help us help missionaries in Malawi bring hope to a country facing a desperate situation?