By Nan Cobbey
Features Editor, Episcopal Life
"I know now how hell is. I am a bishop there."
Bishop Leo Frade of Honduras began one of his dozens of missives to friends and supporters, governments and church relief offices with those words the first week of November. As the winds and rain of Hurricane Mitch tore at his country, Frade's e-mail notes and occasional cell phone calls became increasingly insistent, increasingly ominous as he sought support to help the terrified. He wrote:
On Oct. 30th:
"The danger is worse than yesterday. We are hearing news reports of villages being erased from the map ... the cry and moaning of people trapped is horrible to hear... Our prayer request is for the retaining wall around the Cathedral grounds to hold the raging waters. Holes have begun to appear."
On Oct. 31st:
"I am really scared of what is next... the government is talking about 300,000 people in shelters. Our Cathedral grounds [are] soon to go. Probably the diocesan office will disappear by tonight... The capital of Tegucigalpa is destroyed... To make things worse, the hydroelectrical dams are being emptied because there was danger of them bursting. The floods are even more extensive now.
"The girls of Our Little Roses [orphanage and school] are in the Cathedral with the other refugees... Our church building in Roatan is now floating somewhere in the Caribbean Sea... The prices of water and food have sky rocketed. Fuel is being rationed... Please keep praying."
On Nov. 1st:
"Two hours ago, Fr. Antonio Carcel called me from the Naval Base to tell me that another church, Nuestra Senora de Suapa, is now under water. The church was built a couple of years ago by the students from the University of the South, Sewanee.
"Our church building downtown Comayaguela, one of the older buildings bought many years ago is now completely flooded... the water is over 30 feet high! We saw it on TV as the TV helicopter filmed. [The newscaster] said that the Episcopal Church was destroyed. [Parishioners] called from Tegucigalpa to say "The church is alive and well, only our buildings have been damaged.""
On Nov. 2nd:
"Our president has just announced the death toll is now over 5,000 people. [He] told us to be ready to hear about many more as the waters go down and people are found in their houses.
"In just a week what was becoming quite a pleasant country was wiped out... 1 1/2 million people are homeless... a 1 billion dollars loss... all the crops destroyed. "Yes, we need help and pronto. Thirty-five of our 65 churches are destroyed or damaged."
On Nov. 4th:
"Yesterday I saw one of our seminarians... He had spent seven hours to make a trip that normally takes one. To get to us he had used two boats, hitchhiked, walked five miles and then used public transportation. He came covered with mud, sad and with a broken spirit. I listened to him as he described the devastation and the pain and suffering of his parishioners. He had lost everything he had.
"We prayed and as I shared the great numbers of friends around the world that are helping us ... and the many prayers that people are offering as intercessions for us , he began to be restored and refreshed."
With one cell phone, a miraculously working fax machine -- almost all phone lines into the capital were down -- and, at least some of the time, operational e-mail, Frade kept up a steady stream of reports, most of them rich with pleas for money, volunteers, supplies and prayers.
He even kept his faith-filled sense of humor. At the end of one lengthy, detailed message to friends at the Episcopal Church Center, he wrote:
"Remember when you have water and [an impolite word for muck] up to your necks: GOD STILL REIGNS!!!!!!!!!! +Leo Frade, Bishop of a series of islands in what used to be Honduras."