Like a flood… a phrase that holds newer meaning than ever before to so many in Houston, Texas. It’s a statement we’ve all heard and has probably rolled off of our own lips a time or two while in casual conversation. But hearing that phrase NOW is just DIFFERENT! And so are SO MANY Houstonians after Hurricane Harvey rocked their world!
The day before Harvey was scheduled to make land fall further down the Texas coast, our stateside team gathered together for a time of prayer and worship in our offices before our weekly staff meeting. Unknowing to us, the young man leading us in worship that morning began to play the song “Like A Cloud” by Elevation Worship. It is a song filled with lyrics intricately describing a mighty flood. Our hearts were moved and our prayers came into agreement that God would indeed send a great spiritual rain that would touch our region and specifically our hearts! Although the song itself refers to a spiritual flood, the irony was, none of us knew after singing it that particular morning that an actual physical flood would soon come pouring into our city.
Because the need in Houston became so great after Harvey, Coreluv started a local page called Coreluv Houston:
This page easily allowed us to make people aware of the urgent flood relief needs within our community giving them an opportunity to serve those affected with our team.
A couple of weeks later, we learned of another hurricane (Irma) which came barreling through the Caribbean ocean and this time Haiti was inside its target zone. If you know anything about Haiti, you understand that its infrastructure (with many homes composed of just tin or mud) cannot withstand a major hurricane like Irma. So, Coreluv did the only thing we knew to do when facing a seemingly grim situation. We prayed!! In fact, we scheduled a conference call with several praying ministers we knew and asked them to agree with us that Irma would steer clear of our children and staff in Haiti.
That evening, as we gathered in our statewide offices with a few of our staff members and began the conference call, we soon sensed the atmosphere was shifting! Faith had enveloped our hearts and we fervently asked God to steer the storm away from Haiti. We will never forget checking the weather after the prayer meeting that night and discovering that Hurricane Irma’s cone had disappeared from over Coreluv’s location in Haiti. They experienced only light rain and winds. God indeed answered our prayers!!
(Two days before the prayer meeting. Haiti is on the left side of the island next to Dominican Republic.)
(And AFTER!!! God listens!!)
One area we feel God leading Coreluv into this next season is for us to cultivate a greater emphasis on prayer. Prayer changes things, especially during times like these! Sometimes prayer is ALL we CAN DO! And just as we saw prayer change things during Irma, we believe prayer is going to continue to change things here in Houston and throughout our ministry to orphans around the world. May God continue to release His spiritual rain over us and may His presence come to us like a flood!
Mike & Mandy Reiszner
and the Coreluv Team