What began like a normal downpour in a rainy season from the evening of Sunday, June 28, to mid-morning on Monday, June 29, turned out to be the bearer of another national grief.
As the rains poured relentlessly, those of us who know about the history of protracted rainfall in the cities and towns along the coastal belt didn’t need a prophecy to predict that we were in for an unprecedented deluge.
Unprecedented? Wrong!
Did I say unprecedented? Sorry, wrong! With continuous rainfall for hours, flooding was certainly expected.
We have seen it before; we have experienced it time without number; and, of course, we will see it again.
Just before the rains began to show up, the Meteorological Agency alerted us, “There will be excessive rainfall this year.”
We heard it, we believed it, we discussed it, but we did nothing to prevent the repercussions of the “excessive” rainfall.
Then, what we feared came upon us. Unprepared and unsuspecting, the flood rose above our heads.
For a moment, it resembled a rendition of Noah’s flood.
One woman sent me a video showing water gushing out from beneath her floor.
It rose above us, overwhelmed us, submerged houses and vehicles, and forcefully emptied personal effects from our homes into the choked gutters, which are actually rivers.
Since most Ghanaians don’t know how to swim, many were as vulnerable as our domestic animals that got drowned.
A retired minister of our church, who lives at the lowland basin of Mallam in Accra, suddenly woke up in floodwaters and ran for dear life with her family to a nearby storey building.
Saddest story
The saddest part of the tragedy is the human lives that were lost. As for the material possessions the floods carried away, we can hope to recoup some of them, painful as it is. But how do we recoup lost souls?
So the catastrophic flooding has plunged us into yet another national grief. And we continue to wish all bereaved families our deepest condolences and sympathies.
May they find hope, comfort, and peace in dealing with their loss.
Let me quickly qualify the term “lost souls” that I used earlier. A soul is truly lost only if that soul failed to prepare to meet his or her Lord.
Otherwise, we are assured by Scripture that a soul is not lost if that soul prepared before exiting Planet Earth. In that case, we shall meet our loved ones someday hereafter.
“Therefore,” says the Apostle Paul, “encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18).
Since the earth is replete with circumstances that cause us to bid it farewell—such as another flooding or the road carnage we dread—preparing to meet our God is always the wise thing to do while we live.
Utter dismay
The footage of the deluge poured in from mainstream media and social media like the floods themselves, prompting messages from friends and loved ones from across the globe.
The sounds and sights were disheartening as victims got stranded on bridges and in sinking vehicles. They hung precariously on fence rails, tree branches, and rooftops.
To my utter dismay, I saw greedy and reckless people in pursuit of goods that had been washed out of a warehouse. By foolishly risking their lives to snatch floating freebies, they exemplified some Ghanaians who will easily sell their birthrights for a morsel of lunch!
Accountability
It is now clear that we Africans are experts in failing to immensely harness the natural resources that God brings our way. He gives us rain for our largely agrarian life, and we waste it instead of storing it.
He endows us with mineral resources on arable land, but we destroy the land, the trees, and river bodies to reach them. He enables us to create wealth for the nation, but we deplete it irresponsibly through corruption.
Since our leaders don’t know how to handle our flooding plight, they blame a succession of governments, and they do it so convincingly that we are easily carried away as confused voters.
Pray nevertheless
This year’s National Prayer and Thanksgiving Service, held on Republic Day, July 1, couldn’t have been held on a more appropriate day.
The floods had just engulfed us, and what better time to seek God’s help in dealing with the issues facing the nation in addition to thanking Him for his goodness towards us?
Those who criticised such a national spiritual exercise and suggested that it should have been postponed on account of the flooding disaster failed to understand the biblical injunction to “give thanks in all circumstances, for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
Even the song, “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing,” which the president sang on that day, is biblically sound and pointed to God, who alone can bless our nation and make it great and strong despite our tragedy.
