In the days following Hurricane Mitch, members of Central American dioceses continued to be active in providing aid for victims of what many were calling the worst storm of the century.

The Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, Bishop of Honduras, was among the most active in providing relief. Bishop Frade traveled where he could in his diocese, then kept North Americans and others apprised of developments with daily reports via e-mail. Excerpts from reports sent to The Living Church are printed here:

Nov. 6 — Our church has a strong Cursillo community that has rallied together to serve in the name of Christ. It is so good to see the rainbow ribbons and the Cursillo T-shirts on the women and men of our church loading food into the trucks or helping to dig in the rubble looking for the dead. In the midst of the storm one of my priests tells me that when the winds were blowing the hardest and the rain threatened to flood their shelter, all the Cursillistas decided to have a group reunion in the darkness. The storm was raging but the nerves were calm as they reminded each other that "if God is for us, who is against us?" Reunion groups served them not only during the personal storms that life brings us but also to deal with Hurricane Mitch.

Nov. 8 — It is sad to receive an engineer's evaluation of a broken church building in the capital. We did not need a door to get in; we could use either of the two holes in the wall. Everything was destroyed, just the façade as if it were one street in a Hollywood set. So much work and sacrifice gone in a week of rain and wind. The holy stones laid scattered at the head of every street when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in 587 B.C., and our holy stones lie scattered also in 1998 A.D.

Nov. 9 — We were asked to minister spiritually in the many refugee shelters of our area. We ask your prayers for us to be able to respond to this difficult task of caring for the thousands of people who are now without hope and have lost everything. We have assembled the Lord's Squad formed by the laity, deacons and priests of the area in order to reach most of the shelters. Can we do it? We will try indeed because this is a unique opportunity to reach thousands in their time of need. Please pray for us.

Nov. 10 — We have heard it a lot in recent days. The need is so great that there are many communities that still have to be helped. We work day and night to reach them before it is too late. Volunteers young and old labor hard to fill the trash bags with food. They gather in the cathedral and the diocesan office making such a horrible mess that makes my heart glad. Every one of those bags will mean that somebody will eat tonight. The story is the same when the volunteers come back covered with mud but with a beautiful smile, like the ones you get when you get to feed Jesus, when you give water to our Lord, when you get to clothe our Lord. "You are the only ones who have helped us. We were getting desperate. Thank you, thank you." That's what they are saying when we come with help. I am sure that eventually the government and other more professional agencies will reach them in due time. We were there but you were there, also. You were there feeding our Lord because you made it possible for us to have the means to do it.

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The Ven. John H. Park, Archdeacon of Honduras, also reported of the relief efforts in San Pedro Sula and Tegucigalpa.

"As the waters continue to recede in the San Pedro area, people are returning to their homes to discover that practically everything they owned has been destroyed," he wrote. "In more remote areas, people are still being rescued.

"In Tegucigalpa, people are still trying to remove mud and rubble to discover victims of the hurricane. Parts of the central area, including where our former diocesan office/El Paraiso Deanery office is located, are still flooded because the Chuluteca River formed a dam at one of the several bridges that used to cross it. The rubble that came down the river was caught by the bridge, and it backed the water up. It was precisely this dam and the resultant lake of stagnant water that worried the mayor so that he took a helicopter flight last Sunday to see for himself what was happening, the flight that ended his life."

Archdeacon Park reported that the diocese is buying and distributing relief supplies as fast as the funds to buy them became available. Among the items reported to be needed were canned goods, folding cots, tents, milk, construction tools, insecticides, clothing, grains such as beans and rice, medicines, saline solutions, antitoxins for snake bites, antibiotics, syringes, insulin, cotton, first-aid kits, bandages, adhesive tape and suturing kits.

In El Salvador, the Anglican Church gave instructions to all clergy and lay leaders to support and prepare installations facilities in order to assist the emergency. Anglicans were reported working with an ecumenical venture organized by Lutheran World Federation and others.