When I was 12, a tornado leveled my small town, destroying many homes and our school, killing 29 people, and injuring about 350. It was a long time ago, and I rarely think about that day. But as I reread old reports of the disaster (so I could tell you those stats), I found myself getting choked up as I relived those memories. 

It was the end of summer. Most of us kids were home alone while our parents were at work. We were enjoying one of our last days of summer freedom—all except for the student athletes, coaches, and teachers who were already getting ready to start the new school year. With little warning, the sky turned a sickly green, showering hail the size of baseballs, and the howling wind sounded like a freight train coming right through our living room. I remember a lifetime of tornado drills coming down to this one moment—hundreds of kids huddled in a hallway while an entire school came down around them, hundreds more herding younger siblings into basement nooks as their homes splintered overhead. I remember walking through my town after the storm passed over; it looked like bombs had been dropped all around me. And I remember how long that disaster seemed to define us. It took years to rebuild our school and our homes. Years before our town’s name wasn’t synonymous with tragedy.

But even as I remember my personal experience with a natural disaster, I recognize how minor it is in the grand scheme of things. I truly believe God protected us in the midst of it. The hallway where all the students had taken refuge was the only part of the school left standing. A school with hundreds of people inside it was demolished in a matter of minutes, yet only three people died—I refuse to believe that’s a coincidence. And beyond that, we had the privileges of middle-class America to help us recover, safety nets like home insurance and government services.

People trapped in poverty experience natural disasters quite differently. The last place you want to be when a disaster strikes is an already crumbling apartment block, a trailer home, or a shack on a floodplain. Those kinds of homes are the first to topple, and the death counts are always highest there. Many have no insurance or savings to help them rebuild. And already weak infrastructure like water and hygiene systems and electricity may be wiped out indefinitely. Poor areas are often hit the hardest and are the last to get help.

Even so, God does not forget the poor. His promises to be an ever present help in times of trouble are just as much (or more) for poor people as for the wealthy. We can and must be intereceeding—asking our Father to be a shield around those who are most vulnerable. 

In 2019, about 22 million people were impacted by 300 natural disasters—from wildfires in Australia and Brazil to hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, from massive storms in Southern Africa, India, and China to hundreds of smaller catastrophes that were just as destructive in the lives of those experiencing them. We can be sure that 2020 will hold its own unforeseen catastrophes. 

Please take a few moments to pray with us for those still recovering from recent disasters and for whatever is to come. If you’ve ever survived a disaster, you could take this time to thank God for His protection and healing, and draw from that experience to guide your prayers. Here are a few more suggestions of how to pray:

  • Pray for protection in the midst of disaster, that God will lead people to safety and shelter. Pray special protection for the most vulnerable—those who are sick, elderly, very young, or poor.
  • Pray that God will be near to those who suffer and make Himself known.
  • Pray that we would know the overwhelming love of God, even in the midst of crisis. Pray that the truth of God’s presence and protection would break through all wrong beliefs about God bringing punishment or curses from angry spirits.
  • Pray that governments and international organizations would have an equitable, timely response when disasters occur. 
  • Pray that local churches would be prepared to respond with care and provision when disasters strike. That God would use His people to bring good out of suffering.