Pray for Serbia

Week of May 19-25, 2014

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST FOR SERBIA!
(Protestant Evangelical Alliance of Serbia asks for your prayers. Pray for the people of Serbia, Bosnia, and all who were affected by the floods.)

Dear friends,

We would like to ask you for your urgent and fervent prayers for Serbia. We have had heavy rainfalls for 3 days now, with the amount of rain equaling 3 month quantities (the samesituation is in Bosnia and Herzegovina). It caused local rivers overflowing (rising even to 4 meters in just 1 day) in majority of Serbian towns and cities, leaving thousands of citizens' homes and land flooded, their livestock and domestic animals drowned:-(. People were completely unprepared for this and in shock. So far, there are 5 casualties, but the numbers are not complete unfortunately. A massive storm churned river waters and triggered landslides across the country, leaving roads and railways underwater. Some motorways and roads are blocked, bridges torn down, and some towns in Serbia are still cut off from the civilization. This is the worst flooding ever in the history of Serbia.The Serbian government declared a state of emergency and natural disaster yesterday..

As we are writing this, we know for sure that 7.520 people were evacuated until this morning,135,000 homes are without electricity, 19 towns are flooded. The critical is the town of Obrenovac (suburb of Belgrade) which is being evacuated in total as it is 90% flooded. It has around 18 000 people in addition to be evacuated.

Another critical municipality is Sabac, in western Serbia (around 120 thousand people). It is close to the border of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the great danger is that the river Sava overflows during the night and tomorrow and endangers a huge population. At this point, over 3000 volunteers are traveling towards Sabac from all over Serbia to help the exhausted police forces, the army, the firemen fill the sand bags and try to stop the river overflowing.

Very difficult situation is in other towns like Lazarevac, Valjevo, Paraćin, Smederevska Palanka, Svilajnac, Petrovac na Mlavi. Majority of these towns don't have water or electricity or both. For a small and financially struggling country like Serbia, this sort of thing has a Katrina-like impact:
We would be thankful to you to pray for the following:

1.That God prevents rivers from more overflowing and the rainfall stops (especially it is critical for the town of Sabac and Obrenovac tonight), but also others.
2. That all the people are safely evacuated, with no more casualties.
3. That enough funds are raised in near future to make up for the losses people faced and these are huge (some are left without everything as their houses are lost in landslides and land, as their only source of income, is flooded).
4. For enough food, clothes, blankets and other needed items for thousands who are placed in schools, hospitals, hotels and other premises until the crisis is over.
5. For enough technical equipment to help pump the water from the flooded houses all over Serbia (EU, Russia, Israel already sent some help).
6. That God protects us from infections (in water and in food) due to animal decomposition which is currently underway.
7. All the crops in the flooded areas are completely devastated, which will hugely impact fragile Serbian economy. Pray for God's miracle and grace in this area and for complete restoration.
8. The flooding of bigger rivers is to be expected, so pray for the protection of rivers Sava and Danube.
9. It will take months for people to be able to start living normally, pray for God's mercy and protection and wisdom of the government officials in how to help and what to do. The damage is probably millions of euros.
Following are some links showing a dramatic situation:

This one is with Serbian comments from the Serbian national broadcaster Prva TV: http://www.prva.rs/web-tv/info/exploziv/12005/exploziv---16052014/34911/potop.html
This one is from the foreign media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlY8UbF99tI

Feel free to share this email with your churches, home groups, forward to your friends and cover us in prayers. Thank you so much for your support. It is priceless.

God bless you

Pray for Serbia 5-19-14

In the News: 2 Drown in Serbia as Floods Hit Across Balkans
BELGRADE, Serbia May 15, 2014 (AP)

Two people drowned in Serbia and the country declared a national emergency Thursday as rain-swollen rivers across the Balkans flooded roads and bridges, shut down schools and cut off power. Hundreds of people had to be evacuated.

In Serbia and neighboring Bosnia, meteorologists said the rainfall was the most since measuring started 120 years ago. Belgrade authorities say the average rainfall of a two-month period hit the city in just 40 hours.
"What we are facing is the biggest water catastrophe in Serbia's history," Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said as his government appealed for help from the European Union, Russia and neighboring countries.
Surging water coursed through towns and villages, overflowing across streets and into homes, sweeping bridges off their moorings. Sodden hills crumbled into landslides. Dozens of buses and cars were stranded on flooded roads and two main north-south railway lines in Serbia were impassable. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/woman-drowns-serbia-floods-23726450

I received the following email from Greg and Jelena Sivulka, faithful prayer partners in Serbia:

The past few days, we have had a cyclone over this country that has brought more rain than there has ever been since they started recording rainfall levels 120 years ago!  Some cities and towns have been completely flooded.  There have been electrical shortages and there's a possibility that the main power plant may have to shut down most of its operations due to the flooding.  Just about an hour ago we just received word from a reliable source that the tap water has become contaminated.  I went to the store and joined the crowds of people buying bottled water.  What a catastrophe! 

Fortunately, in our city, Novi Sad, no areas have had to be evacuated yet, although several houses have been flooded.  A state of emergency has been declared in the country and thousands of community service workers and volunteers have been working round the clock to reinforce riverbanks with sandbags.  The rain just continues to fall, but they say it should be calming down sometime this weekend.

Please keep us in prayer!

P.S.  Here's an article with photos that will give you a better idea of what's going on:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27439139

Prayer Points:
1.    Let us pray for those suffering from this flooding in Serbia and Bosnia.
2.    Pray for the families of those that lost their lives due to the flooding.
3.    Pray for those that have had property damage, being overwhelmed by water.
4.    In the long run, pray that the Churches would take a lead in rescuing, caring for and over the months ahead, restoring families back to a normal existence.
5.    Truly it is a time upon the earth when we are seeing unnatural things happening in nature. Lord, help the Serbian people to look beyond the present tragedies and have hope for the future.
6.    This flooding tragedy will compound the already financial problems in Serbia. Let us pray for hope to supernaturally spring forth and a real “roll up our sleeves and go to work” attitude.

Ecclesiastes 3:10-12 (NLT)  I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.  Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

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