the local farmers’ entire year’s

earnings. The roofs of stores

peaked out from the brown

waves of flood waters, signaling

thousands upon thousands of

lost jobs. Entire families moved

onto their rooftops in order to

not abandon their homes.

We felt the desire to do some-

thing, the irresponsibility of not

doing anything, the insecurity of

not knowing where to begin, the

questioning of who would go

with us. All of these tumbling

thoughts stopped their random

rumblings with two consecutive

phone calls from Fishers of Men

volunteer Mexican doctors who

asked: “What are we going to

do?”

The Action Begins

The next 48 hours were filled

EM ER G EN C Y EV A N G EL I S T IC M ED IC A L M IS S IO N C R U SA D E

FISHERS OF MENFISHERS OF MENFISHERS OF MENFISHERS OF MEN

“Here we would like to empha-

size the Evangelistic work of

our brothers in Christ as they

shared the message of hope

and the personalized and pro-

fessional attention given to

each individual who received

aid.” - words of Pastor Fer-

nando Torres Torres , pastor

of the Full Gospel Church of

God “Heaven’s Door” in Vil-

lahermosa, Tabasco, in a

thank you note to Fishers of

Men

In the Beginning

The children’s Sunday School

song says: “The rains came down

and the floods came up.

The rains came down and

the floods came up. The

rains came down and the

floods came up and the

house on the sand fell

flat.”

That song became reality

for the people of the south-

eastern Mexican state of

Tabasco at the beginning of

the month of November as day

after day of rain flooded over

80% of the state! Rivers grew

outside their banks, despite the

army and local people’s best

efforts at sandbagging the banks.

The high tide of the Gulf of

Mexico prevented much of the

water from washing into the

ocean, but rather returned the

flood waters to the mainland.

Area dams

quickly filled

and a por-

tion of their

contents had

to be re-

leased into

the already

overbur-

dened rivers

in order to prevent a greater

disaster if the dam would break.

One of the areas hardest hit by

the flooding was the capital city

of Tabasco, Villahermosa, and

specifically, the downtown region

of that city.

The Plea

The news images flashed across

the TV screen in our living room

as we sat in awe at the trans-

formed landscape of Tabasco.

The entire state seemed to have

been swallowed up the sea.

Fields disappeared, along with

“A Message of Hope”

November 21, 2007

Special Edition

Tabasco Flood Relief Flood Relief

Facts:

• 9 tons of donated

clothing, food and medication were taken to Tabasco

• Over 250 patients

were seen by the six Fishers of Men volunteer physi-cians in two days

• Over 50 families

received large food baskets of non-perishable food items

• A 13 member team

and two vehicles traveled to Tabasco

• A total of $4250

was donated for relief efforts

Downtown Villahermosa, Tabasco under water.

The streets filled with mattresses, furniture and other belongings ruined by the floods.

FISHERS OF MEN

with phone calls and emails to

everybody we knew here in Mex-

ico and the United States who

then contacted everybody they

knew! Slowly, our joint desires to

provide hope and relief to the

suffering people of Tabasco

stopped being simple desires and

became plans of action.

Mexican churches began collect-

ing clothing, non-perishable food

items and medications to be

taken to Tabasco. Generous

Christians in the United States

began to send in monetary dona-

tions to help purchase needed

supplies as well as the diesel fuel

needed for the supply truck.

Volunteer Mexican doctors re-

quested time off work and solic-

ited donated medications at their

places of employment. Victor

spent hours and hours on the

phone coordinating efforts across

several Mexican states and search-

ing for a suitable truck to carry

the donations to Tabasco while

Julie kept email communications

flowing.

Departure Day

The moment of departure re-

mained uncertain as it depended

on the availability of a truck to

carry the donations, as well as all

of the donations being gathered

together in one central location.

Victor spent two 14 hour days

driving all over the State of Mex-

ico and Mexico City picking up

donated items from different

churches and individuals while

Julie manned the phone at Ref-

uge Ranch coordinating the arri-

val of the volunteer doctors and

donations from three different

states.

Finally, a supply truck, with 9

tons of donated food, medicines

and clothing, pulled out of

Chalco (a suburb of Mexico

City), driven by a Mexican pastor

friend, Saul Strafford, at 5:00

a.m. on Thursday, November 15.

The Fishers of Men 15 passenger

van rolled out about five hours

later with the remaining team

members on board: Victor, direc-

tor and driver, five volunteer

doctors, a paramedic and four

general volunteers.

The Trip

The 15 passenger van caught up

to the supply truck, which trav-

eled much slower, in the state of

Veracruz. Right after sunset, the

team was stopped

by a federal police

officer. The offi-

cer informed

them of bands of

robbers assaulting

relief caravans

and said that the

team should by

no means stop

along the road or

detain themselves, due to the

danger of being robbed. During

that traffic stop, the Fishers of

Men team met a group of Chris-

tians from Texas, from the or-

ganization Texas Baptist Men

(www.texasbaptistmen.org) who

were also on their way to Vil-

lahermosa to provide flood relief.

The two groups soon pulled back

out onto the highway to continue

their journey. Not long after-

wards, they noticed a large group

of people gathered under a

bridge. As the caravan passed, a

young man (approximately 14

years of age) darted out from the

group and into traffic and was hit

by one of the vehicles driven by

the group from Texas. The Fish-

ers of Men team did not stop, as

instructed by the federal police

officer, but used their cell phones

to call for an ambulance and alert

local law enforcement officials as

to the accident. The latest infor-

mation that we have regarding

the accident was that the victim

was in critical condition and the

driver, a Christian man from

Texas, had been detained while

his insurance company and the

Mexican authorities discussed the

accident and its consequences.

This process

may take up to

a month!

Please keep

both the young

man and the

Christian

driver in your

prayers.

The team ar-

rived in Villahermosa at 10:00

p.m. that evening. Despite being

very tired, they quickly unloaded

the supply truck at the local

church where the ministry opera-

tion would be located for the

next several days. The truck

could not be left outside loaded

because of the possibility of it

being ransacked during the night

by desperate local citizens. In

fact, the team could not openly

“Therefore let

everyone who is

godly pray to you

while you may be

found; surely when

the mighty waters

rise, they will not

reach him.”

Psalm 32:6

Page 2

Tabasco Flood Relief

The supply truck, loaded with 9 tons of donated relief supplies, traveling down the highway to Ta-basco.

Unloading the supply truck at the local church in Vil-lahermosa, Tabasco at 10:00 p.m.

The donated items unloaded at the church, ready to be sorted.

announce their presence at the

church because of the possibility

of being bombarded by more

flood victims than they could

handle. Rather, word of mouth

and a small hand-written sign

hung on the outside of the

church alerted the local people to

the recently arrived Emergency

Evangelistic Medical Mission

Crusade.

The Mission

As the sun rose on

Friday morning,

the Fishers of Men

team began to

work. The doc-

tors attended to

the many patients

seeking medical care and medica-

tion. The general volunteers

sorted the nine tons of dona-

tions, preparing garbage bags full

of non-perishable food items and

preparing clothing for distribu-

tion. As always during an Evan-

gelistic Medical Mission Crusade,

other volunteers shared the Gos-

pel one-on-one with those who

came seeking aid.

In Fishers of Men we have a say-

ing, “There’s no use sending

them well fed and well dressed to

Hell.” On the surface, the saying

may seem somewhat crude. But

it reflects our deep and heartfelt

conviction that while we must

meet the physical needs of the

people, we cannot neglect, much

less ignore, their much greater

spiritual need. The Bible, and

Jesus’ life on earth, teach and

show repeatedly that faith and

works go hand in hand, but, at

the final call, the only thing that

will last is the decision that we

have made to ask Jesus to be our

Lord and Savior and the actions

that result from that decision, i.e.

our service to Him. Therefore,

even in a crisis situation, such as

we encountered in Tabasco, it

remains an absolute necessity to

share the Good News of Jesus

Christ and given each individual

that we encounter the opportu-

nity to ask Him to forgive them

of their sins and come

to reign in their hearts

and lives.

The Local Flock

Fishers of Men also

has the practice of

ministering with the

Evangelistic Medical Mission

Crusade through the local church

or missionary. This practice re-

mained consistent during the

emergency crusade.

Two days after the decision was

made to go to Tabasco, Pastor

Saul, who drove the supply truck,

contacted a pastor friend of his in

Villahermosa by cell phone. The

pastor answered the phone call as

he stood before his congregation,

many of whom were living in the

church because their homes were

flooded. He began to weep when

Pastor Saul informed him that

aid was on the way! The local

pastor held up his cell phone and

told his congregation: “See?! I

told you God was real! I told you

He heard our prayers! Help is on

the way!” Since the team would

take more than 10 days to get

organized, we immediately sent a

monetary offering directly to the

local pastor to be used to pur-

chase food for the congregation.

Many of the congregation mem-

bers were using the church as a

shelter and several had not eaten

for days.

When the Fishers of Men team

finally did arrive, over 10 days

later, they were received with

hugs, tears and a moving prayer

service. Several

more times of

prayers and

praise were

held jointly

between the

local congrega-

tion and the

Fishers of Men

team members.

The local pas-

tor expressed,

with tears of

thanksgiving,

his gratitude to

God for the

presence of the

Fishers of Men

team. He and

his wife were

exhausted after

several weeks of

caring non-

stop, not only

for their own

young family,

but for their

Brothers and

Sisters in

Christ who

came to live in

the church and

faced homes

destroyed and jobs lost. The

presence of the Fishers of Men

team encouraged the pastor and

his congregation and strength-

Tabasco Flood Relief Page 3

ened them in the Lord to be

able to continue “fighting the

good fight” in Jesus’ name.

Many of the families in the

local congregation have lost

their jobs, as their places of

employment were under water

for several weeks and have no

timeline for being back in busi-

ness. Trusting

in the local

Pastor’s wis-

dom, as well as

in obedience

to the Bible

when it says

we should

“first help

those of the

faith”, Fishers

of Men put

together over

50 large gar-

bage bags of

non-perishable

food items

which were

distributed to

specific mem-

bers of the

congregation

in dire need.

Tabasco and

Beyond

While we

would have

liked to have

been able to

spend more

time ministering in Tabasco,

we had to return rather quickly

because we are due to leave in

less than a week on a regular

God’s Justice

Despite the fact that many evan-

gelical churches were serving as

shelters, the government refused to

recognize them, choosing to funnel

all government aid through the local

Catholic churches (reflecting a

centuries-long alliance between the

government and the Catholic

church here in Mexico). Local

Catholic priests refused to distribute

aid to the evangelical Christians,

creating a more desperate situation

for the Christians than even for the

general population. (Discrimination

due to one’s faith is still a very com-

mon occurrence here.)

Thankfully, several days before the

arrival of the Fishers of Men team,

several dishonest practices within

the Catholic church were brought to

light (priests hording aid in their

parishes as well as parishioners

reselling food baskets that they had

been given). This resulted in the

government rechanneling the fed-

eral aid through the Evangelical

Churches and officially recognizing

them as shelters! Praise the Lord!

Dr. Escamilla filling a pre-scription for a flood victim patient.

later with additional donations given by churches and individuals.

Thank you for being such a critical part of the Fishers of Men team.

Although you may not have participated physically as a member of

the team that traveled to

Tabasco, your prompt

and very generous giving

made this emergency

crusade not only possi-

ble, but very effective.

Your prayers sustained

and protected the team.

Your words of encourage-

ment spurred us forward.

We are sure that

the Lord is in

Heaven applaud-

ing the unified

efforts of His

body in respond-

ing to the Ta-

basco flood crisis.

Good job team!

We pray that the

second verse of

the Sunday

School song holds

true for the people of

Tabasco, now that they

have had the opportunity

to meet for the first time or to reaf-

firm their faith in the only true Solid

Rock that can weather any storm—Jesus Christ! “The rains came

down and the floods came up… And the house on the rock stood

firm!”

Tabasco Flood Relief Page 4

One of the grateful families of the congregation receiving their non-perishable food

items. “Thank you!”

Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade that was already scheduled

to the state of Guerrero. The doctors, and Victor, needed a few

days to rest and repack, as well as time to prepare all the necessary

equipment.

We had anticipated setting up

several community feeding centers

for the flood victims. However,

this was not necessary due to the

fact that when the Fishers of Men

team arrived, much of the water

was gone and people were able to

get back into their homes and able

to cook for themselves. Also, since

the government had begun to send

some aid to the shelters located in

Evangelical

churches, the

need for prepared

food was not as

pressing as several

days previous.

However, we

know that the

Lord used the

Fishers of Men

team in accordance with His per-

fect will and in His perfect timing.

Our responsibility is simply to obey

His call and He works out the de-

tails and the outcome.

We are encouraged and excited

that Fishers of Men is now much

better equipped to react quickly in

the face of an emergency. With the

equipment that was purchased

(several canopies; portable burners,

propane tanks and pots and pens;

tents –the team stayed in the shel-

ter at the church this time, but

such housing arrangements are not

always possible; and cots for examining patients), as well as plans

to purchase a small trailer that can be pulled behind the 15 pas-

senger van, Fishers of Men should be able to pull out within 48

hours of an emergency with the most critical supplies and volun-

teer personnel. Then, other team members can follow several days

Words of Thanks from the Local Pastor in Tabasco

It is a great joy for us to greet you in brotherly love, knowing that we are One

Body in Christ with Him being the Head of all.

We would like to make known the great work of the aid brigade brought to

our State, coordinated by Victor Zaragoza (Fishers of Men), who have done

a glorious work in our community since we had been suffering from the re-

cent floods that began at the outset of this month, and in which many of our

brothers and sisters in Christ lost personal belongings and their employ-

ment. They have been very difficult days during which our main cry has

been for strength from on High in order to continue to

trust in the powerful hand of our

God.

With the arrival of the food, water,

clothing, medications and the

doctors, we have seen the an-

swer of God and the great love

that unites us without distinctions

of culture, color or denomination.

The team arrived in the exact

moment needed to a shaken

community in order to serve as

proof of the power of God. Here we would like to em-

phasize the Evangelistic work of our brothers and sis-

ters in Christ as they shared the message of hope and

the personalized and professional attention given to each individual who

received aid.

We want to thank, in an eternal manner, ALL of our brothers and sisters in

Christ who, in one way or another, gave not only economically, but morally,

spiritually and physically, helping with their strength, dedication and time.

Our God gives the recompense and He will give a fair pay to each one and

we pray that He will continue to pour out His blessings until overflowing.

This community is grateful for all the aid received—”We always thank God,

the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we

have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all

the saints.” (Colossians 1:3-4)

Pastor Fernando Torres and fam-ily—pastor of the church in Ta-basco.

The letter of gratitude from Pastor Fernando.