Faith through the storm
By: Jimmy Tomlin, STAFF WRITER 10/21/2001
Staff photo by David Holston

Cindy Palmer reads Bible and thinks of the challenges facing husband Don (in photograph), who remains in Belize

On a clear, starry night a week and a half ago, Don Palmer climbed out of his pickup truck, gazed into the picturesque sky and cried out.

"God," he called, "what have I done?"Palmer, a 48-year-old High Point native now serving as a missionary in Belize, had just endured the worst disaster of his life - Hurricane Iris, a Category 4 storm packing winds upwards of 140 mph.

The powerful hurricane had reduced Palmer's modest home - which he built with his own hands - to a pile of Tinker Toys. Little could be salvaged.

He was all alone, having just put his wife of five years, Cindy, on an airplane bound for North Carolina, where she will remain indefinitely.

Palmer now lives in the small pickup truck, which he parks on his lot to try and keep looters at bay. He has little money. Food and drinking water are scarce. Bathing is a rare privilege.

Meanwhile, creatures great and small surround him. Jaguars, which rarely stray from the jungle, were displaced by the storm and have been spotted along roadways. Vipers, scorpions and tarantulas also abound, as do monster mosquitoes and armies of fire ants.

This is the life for which Palmer gave up a cushy job as a mortgage broker here in the Triad, after feeling the Lord tugging him and Cindy toward the mission field.

And now, even their young, burgeoning ministry, which seemed to have been touched by the hand of God, has taken a wallop from the hurricane.

Never mind the structural damage to their church or the 250 ruined Bibles the couple had planned to distribute in a nearby Mayan village. More importantly, the many Belizian men, women and children who only recently had placed their trust in Jesus now wonder why God looked the other way as Iris roared across their homeland.

Palmer grasps for an answer. The concept of a sovereign God with a higher plan, he knows, is a tough sell to young believers whose faith is still fragile.

He didn't become a Christian himself until he was 40, and he admits to struggling for an answer to soothe his own soul.

"Why, God?" he cried out on that starry night. "Why?"

In the stillness that followed, Palmer says he heard a small voice in his spirit say, "You need to go read Job, my friend."

So he climbed back in his truck, turned on the interior light and read the biblical story of Job, a man who endured countless afflictions but responded with fortitude and faith.

"Devastation came on his life," Palmer says now, "but in the end God was glorified. And I think the Lord's gonna take this situation and get His message out louder than He ever has before. When we rebuild, we're going to be even stronger."

* * * *

When Don and Cindy Palmer began their ministry, they knew Belize - like other Caribbean nations - was subject to violent storms during hurricane season.

They researched carefully before locating in Placencia, a small, remote town along the southern coast of Belize, where a full-strength hurricane had not hit in nearly 60 years.

Don, a graduate of Ragsdale High School, left his job at First Mortgage Unlimited Corp. in Jamestown and moved to Belize in early April. The plan was for him to begin establishing their ministry - the interdenominational Ministries of the Son of God - while building a comfortable home for him and his wife.

Cindy, a native of the West Jefferson area, stayed in High Point at the home of Don's mother, Peggy Alexander. It was only 21/2 months ago that she left her job at Coins & Stuff and joined her husband in Belize.
"Our ministry in the last few months has blossomed," says Cindy, who for now is living with her mother-in-law again. "We hold three Bible studies and two church services each week. Our biggest Bible study is in a Mayan village, where we minister to 80 children every week. Things were just going great."

Their 385-square-foot, wooden house sat on stilts, to protect it from floodwaters and to discourage wild animals from trying to get in. It had a small living room and kitchen - where Cindy cooked on a hot plate - plus a bathroom and small bedroom. "It was small," Cindy says, "but it was comfortable."

It was also vulnerable - certainly no match for a Category 4 hurricane.

On the morning of Oct. 8, weather bulletins suggested Iris, like hurricanes past, would blow ashore late in the day near Belize City, well north of Placencia. The Palmers felt safe.

Even early that afternoon, when forecasters reported Iris had turned south toward Placencia, the couple opted to ride out the storm in their small home, which Don had storm-proofed by boarding the windows with plywood. Even as soldiers evacuated the town, loading villagers onto flatbed trucks and driving them inland, the Palmers stayed.

Around 4 p.m., despite still-sunny skies and almost no wind, they changed their minds.

"It just got kind of scary," Cindy recalls. "They said on the radio, 'If you're in the path of this hurricane, get out now.'"

So they packed a few changes of clothes and some snack food, hopped in the truck and drove two hours inland to the mountains of Belmopan, the nation's capital. They ate supper, waited another hour or so - until the storm had blown through - then headed back toward Placencia.

Even in the darkness, they could see the path of destruction Iris had left - downed trees and power lines, cars and houses tossed like small toys, water standing three feet deep. The village gas station was gone, as were the bank, the post office and the village store.

As the Palmers neared their home, hopeful but mostly fearful, they held hands and prayed.

When they finally turned in their drive and shone the headlights on what was left of their home, Cindy burst into tears.

"Our house was picked up and carried at least 40 feet, if not more, and slammed down to the ground," Don says. The roof and one side of the house were torn off, and the house was flooded.

The storm killed 20 people and destroyed more than 3,100 homes, leaving nearly 20,000 people homeless, according to the National Emergency Management Organization of Belize.

"It looked like a war zone," Cindy says softly. "I've never seen such devastation."

* * * *

Within 48 hours, Cindy was on a plane bound for the States, shaken by the storm damage, unnerved at the sight of vipers and tarantulas, and longing for a hot shower and cozy bed.

"When I got here, I told (my mother-in-law), 'I don't think I ever want to see that place again,'" Cindy recalls.

"But now, after a hot shower and a lot of rest, I have to say that my heart's still there, and if I knew I had a place to stay, I'd probably get on a plane today."

She'll return soon, she vows.

Meanwhile, Don remains in Belize, sleeping in his pickup truck and living off beans and wieners, crunchy peanut butter and jelly, and water.

"That's a feast to me," he says. "A lot of people don't even have that. I'm surviving."

When Cindy left Belize, she begged Don to come with her, if only for a while, but he refused.

"These are my people," he explains in a telephone interview. "I've got to do what I can for them. I've got to go to the villages and let them know I'm still living and that I still care for them and God still cares for them. I can't just disappear off the face of the Earth."

Cindy smiles at her husband's determination.

"Donnie has a vision," she says. "The Lord has a hold on his heart, and he can't give in. I feel guilty that I left him, but we agreed I was holding him back more than helping, because he was having to look after me and couldn't devote all of his attention to the people there."

Cindy chokes back tears as she recalls homeless villagers, many of them injured, crying in the streets. Children were screaming. "People were asking us for food," she says, "but we didn't have any to give them."

Since then, Don has made several trips to Belize's larger cities, buying food and taking it to as many villages as he can. He's also been trying to satisfy their spiritual hunger, too.

"I've been telling them to read Psalm 23 - that's like a rope I'm clinging to," he says. "'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' And then later it says, 'Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.'"

In the meantime, Don clings to his own faith to survive the most violent storm - literally and figuratively - of his life.

"You can lose your dog, you can lose your house and you can lose your wife, but God is always there," he says, "and that's what I'm hanging on to. I've told Him, 'You're gonna have to give me refuge.' And He will. I know He will."