Today, my heart grieves for Texas.

As of July 6, 2025, at least 67 people are still missing—including 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp, and others like campers and visitors unaccounted for in the holiday chaos—after a devastating July 4 rainstorm turned the Guadalupe River into a raging wall of water. Fifty-one lives have been lost. Homes vanished. Families shattered. A community overwhelmed by sorrow.

When I was a kid in Rio de Janeiro, I saw what a flood can do. One afternoon, rain hit hard, and water came rushing down the hillsides, turning streets into rivers. My family got trapped in a tunnel as a mudslide came down. I remember the darkness. The fear. The silence that followed. We made it out. That moment never left me.

So when I read about Texas, it’s not just a news story. It hits a nerve. I know what it feels like when nature turns fierce, fast, and unforgiving.

Now, sitting in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I picture the Rappahannock River rising 26 feet in 4...