myBlessedHope

Here are five headlines from today on crazy weather patterns occurring throughout the world. God predicted each of these in the Bible and that they would come to pass during the lead-up to the last days.

We have global food prices rising.  God predicted in Revelations 6:6 that we will have to work all day just for enough food to feed ourselves, not our family but just our self.

Revelation 6:6 – “And I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!”

We are a long way from that but prices on almost all essentials are going up.  In the end it will probably be a combination of increased prices and economic collapse.  But we need to be watchful, God is trying to get our attention to turn back to him.

Next we have more flooding, this time in southern Sudan.  It is very significant with about 60,000 people left homeless.  People will say, there has always been flooding, but how about three of this magnitude on two continents, at the same time?  God said we would see this in Luke’s prophecy for the end times.

Luke 21:25 “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring“

The volcano in Indonesia continues to erupt driving over 21,000 people from their homes, with experts unsure of why and what is driving the eruption.  This shows another one of God’s signs, “…upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity…”.

In the Atlantic, several Hurricanes churn, with all eyes on Earl as a category 4 headed toward the east coast.  I would call that “…the sea and the waves roaring…”.  We haven’t seen a category 4 or 5 since Katrina and certainly not in the Atlantic.  It’s trajectory looks like it will hit the entire east coast as well.  Hopefully, it stays out to sea, but again, look at this as the frequency and intensity increasing as birth pains strengthen.

Last, we see that the flooding in Pakistan continues and is worsening since it first began one month ago.  Famine is now the concern, as so many crops were destroyed.  Disease or Pestilence will also be a concern, was the prolonged flooding continues to take its toll.  God predicted this as well.

Matthew 24:6-8 – “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.   For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows.”

We need to turn back to God before it is too late, once these birth pains hit their peak, God has promised to rapture His church, to save them from the coming seven-year tribulation, Daniel’s 70th week.  Accept Jesus as your savior, and his free gift of eternal life.

John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

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UN: Global food prices highest in 2 years

ROME – International food prices have risen to their highest level in two years, fueled in part by a drought in Russia that lifted the cost of wheat, a U.N. agency said Wednesday.

The Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said its food price index shot up 5 percent between July and August. But that was still 38 percent down from its peak in June 2008.

Drought in Russia — and the country’s subsequent restrictions on wheat exports — forced a sudden sharp rise in wheat prices, the agency said. Higher sugar and oilseed prices also were factors in the higher index.

The agency’s Abdulreza Abbassian said there were sharp differences between the current price situation and the spring of 2008, when high oil prices and growing demand for biofuels pushed world food stocks to their lowest levels since 1982.

Stocks are much higher now and even while the forecast for world cereal production in 2010 has been lowered it is still expected to be the third highest on record.  <Link>

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Floods in south Sudan leave nearly 60,000 homeless

(Reuters) – Floods have displaced nearly 60,000 people in the last month in south Sudan with many at risk of malaria and other diseases, the semi-autonomous region’s government said Tuesday.

The crisis is another hurdle for the war-ravaged south ahead of a referendum on independence in January, which some analysts fear will be hindered by a worsening humanitarian situation with almost half the region’s 8 million population short of food.

“In the last one month 57,135 people have been displaced by the floods,” said the south’s undersecretary for health Olivia Lomoro, adding that many were at risk of malaria and water-borne diseases.

She said Aweil, the capital of Northern Bahr El-Ghazal state, was ground zero for the crisis. The area was one of the hardest hit in a two-decade long civil war and is already heavily reliant on international food aid.

The south’s health minister, Luka Monoja, told a news conference that rains were expected to continue until October, meaning the worst may be yet to come.

Northern Bahr El-Ghazal is due to receive some of the 1.5 million people the government plans to bring home from the north before the January vote.

The United Nations says it has already helped feed some 4 million southerners in 2010 and warns voting preparations may heap more stress on the region.

Analysts fear the mounting humanitarian crisis will add to problems of insecurity ahead of the January 9 vote and destabilize a newly independent state should the referendum pass.

The mainly Christian and animist south has fought a bitter civil war against the mainly Muslim north over ethnicity, ideology and resources for all but a few years since 1955.

The plebiscite is the climax of a 2005 peace deal ending Africa’s longest running civil war.  <Link>

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21,000 people evacuated as Indonesian volcano continues to spew ash for miles around

Aircraft have had to be diverted and more than 21,000 people evacuated after an Indonesian volcano erupted for the second day in a row.

Towering clouds of ash are being spewed out of Mount Sinabung in North Sumatra and thousands of villagers living on its slopes have been forced to head to emergency shelters, mosques and churches.

Homes and fields containing crops have been blanketed in heavy, gray soot and the air near the volcano is thick with the smell of sulphur.

Disruption: Flights have been diverted and thousands evacuated after Mount Sinabung erupted for the first time in 400 years

Evacuated: Nearby villages and crop fields have been covered in thick, gray ash

Ash: A resident attempts to escape from his village on a moped as the volcano erupts in the background

Mt Sinabung last erupted in 1600, so observers don’t know its eruption pattern and admitted over the weekend that it had not been closely monitored before it erupted on Sunday.

Two people have died, one from breathing problems and the other from a heart attack, and two suffered injuries in road accidents as trucks, ambulances and buses were mobilised in the rescue operation.

Like other volcanoes along the Sumatra fault line – where the Eurasian and Pacific tectonic plates push against each other – it has the potential to be very destructive, according to disaster researcher Erick Ridzky.

A larger blast has the potential to obscure visibility he said, affecting air traffic in nearby Singapore and Malaysia.

Several domestic flights heading to the provincial capital of Medan have had to be diverted, according to the Indonesian Transportation Ministry.

Unknown: There are fears there could be a more powerful eruption, threatening thousands of Indonesian people

Surono, a government volcanologist, said: ‘The problem is, we really have no idea what to expect.

‘We don’t know what set it off, how long it will continue or whether to expect pyroclastic flows or more powerful eruptions.’

So far, around 21,000 people have been evacuated and food, emergency tents and medicine is being flown to the area.

The government has set up public kitchens for refugees and handed out more than 17,000 respiratory masks.

Indonesia is spread across 17,500 islands and is prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes because of its location within the so-called ‘Ring of Fire’ – a series of fault lines stretching from the Western Hemisphere through Japan and Southeast Asia.

It is also home to some of the largest eruptions in recorded history.

The 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora buried the inhabitants of Sumbawa Island under searing ash, gas and rock – killing an estimated 88,000 people.

Krakatoa in 1883, which was heard nearly 2,000 miles away, sent surges of gas and burning ash that, combined with a tsunami, left 36,000 dead.  <Link>

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U.S. Officials Warn of Mass Evacuations as Hurricane Earl Barrels Toward East Coast

NASA – Hurricane Earl is photographed by astronaut Douglas Wheelock aboard the International Space Station on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010.

AP – Aug. 30: A boy takes cover from a wave caused by the approaching of the Hurricane Earl in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Earl battered some islands across the northeastern Caribbean with heavy rain and roof-ripping winds Monday, rapidly intensifying into a major storm on a path projected to menace the United States.

Mass evacuations may be required if Hurricane Earl tracks too close to the East Coast, federal officials said Tuesday, as the powerful Category 4 storm barreled toward the U.S.

Earl, with winds of 135 mph (215 kilometers), was expected to remain over the open ocean before turning north and running parallel to the U.S. coast, potentially reaching the North Carolina coastal region by late Thursday or early Friday. It was projected then to curve back out to sea, perhaps swiping New England or far-eastern Canada.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that it is sending staff up and down the East Coast to help prepare communities potentially affected by the hurricane.

The agency said that it has supplies strategically located across the country, including water, meals, tarps, blankets, generators and other essential items. It also said that people along the eastern seaboard should be prepared in case evacuations are necessary later this week.

“We’re taking steps to aggressively prepare should a hurricane make landfall along the East Coast,” FEMA Director Craig Fugate said in a statement distributed by the agency.  <Link>

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Famine threatens flood-hit Pakistan

ONE MONTH after the disaster began, flood waters were threatening to engulf two more towns in southern Pakistan yesterday, as the United Nations warned tens of thousands of children are now at risk of death from malnutrition.

A young girl, whose family was displaced from their homes by flooding, holds an empty container as she lines up for food rations at a flood relief camp run by the Pakistan Army. Pic Getty

The floods are Pakistan’s worst-ever natural disaster in terms of the amount of damage and the number of people affected, with more than six million forced from their homes, about a million of them in the past few days as the water flows south.

So far the disaster has claimed about 1,600 lives, inflicted billions of pounds of damage to homes, infrastructure and the vital agriculture sector and stirred anger against the Islamabad government, which has struggled to cope.

Floods are beginning to recede across most of the country as the water flows downstream, but high tides in the Arabian Sea mean they still pose a threat to towns in Sindh province, such as Thatta, 45 miles east of Karachi. Water had broken the banks of the Indus near Thatta and also broken out of a feeder canal running off the river, compounding the danger, Riaz Ahmed Soomro, relief commissioner in the southern province of Sindh, said.

“The water has not reached the town up to now but it is approaching,” Soomro said.

Tens of thousands of people have poured out of the delta town, which normally has a population of about 300,000, after authorities told people to leave.

The UN, the Pakistani army and a host of local and international relief groups have been rushing aid workers, medicine, food and water to the affected regions, but have so far been unable to reach many people.  <Link>

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Click on “<Link>” above for each referenced article.