This is the year of typhoon in places we love in Asia. First it was Taiwan in areas near where we have served. Now it’s the Philippines. The worst hit places are where we lived forty years ago. This picture haunts me since it’s very near where we lived during Typhoon Yoling, the forty year ago storm the news accounts refer to. This time there’s less wind damage, but worse flooding damage.
The worst hit people are always the poor. Manila is full of “squatters,” homeless people who build shelters out of what ever they can scrounge. They live by doing odd jobs in rich people’s homes and going through garbage, looking for anything they can recycle. In such cases the aid resources are completely overwhelmed. Suffering grows as drinking water and then food supplies are exhausted.
Here’s an account from Linda Berg, a friend and Faith Academy teacher. It will help you pray:
We are in a state of disaster. The tropical storm that hit the northern part of the Philippines Friday night became typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) Saturday morning as it stalled over Manila dumping a months worth of rain on us in a 6 hour time period. The flooding we experienced is the worst in 4 decades. The rivers couldn’t hold the water and neither could the dams. It has devastated more than half of the city wiping away make shift shelters (squatter villages) and ruining well built homes. The losses of lives and possessions are great everywhere.
The flash floods came so fast we had no idea how to really respond but to jump into “what can we save!” mode. As the waters continued to rise over the next two – three hours we were in a frantic scurry going from room to room to save the next level up of things that would get wet. Our home flooded 2-3 feet (depending where you stood) and the street level was 4-5 feet. The main street on Valley Golf Road was past 6 feet (one father swam into our village to retrieve his daughter who was at my house. He left her with us and swam back home). We were sheltered well on our second story. The waters subsided in our subdivision Saturday night but many other places where people were evacuated had completely submerged homes and the flood water didn’t disappear until Monday.
Clean-up for this catastrophe will be on-going for weeks and bodies and spirits are worn to the edge already. It has been ongoing solid hard work for days without running clean water and some without power. We filled every bucket we could find to store rain water. Sunday afternoon after cleaning since Saturday night we finally were able to get to a store for some food and more cleaning supplies. We also bought food and cleaning supplies for one squatter village that washed away completely. When we stopped on the way home to give them the items more people than I could imagine just emerged and I realized it barely made a dent in their need. In the continuing days I hope to continue to meet these types of needs for those who have so much less than I. However, grocery shelves are becoming scare of supplies and food and drinking water is almost impossible to find. Please pray the roads will open up more and the relief supplies will arrive.
The resiliency of the Filipino people and the Faith community has been amazing to witness. Our God is an awesome God! His hope is secure in our hearts. Please pray for us as we continue to reach out with relief efforts to those around us in great need that they will see our hands as those of Jesus. My heart is breaking for those around me. I wish to do so much for them but am limited. May they see the love of Jesus as the living water they need more desperately than that they are waiting in line to buy to drink.
God’s unfailing faithfulness has held us strong. I started singing in the middle of a prayer time standing in the rising waters, “Hide me now, under Your wings. Cover me within Your mighty hand. When the oceans rise and thunders roar, I will soar with You above the storm. Father, You are King over the flood. I will be still and know You are God. I will be still and know You are God!” I’ve read night after night the promises of God’s hand keeping us through storms and floods just in the book of Psalms alone. I lost count as I’ve fallen asleep at night reading these truths over and over. God was not surprised by this. It didn’t shake His plan. He will use it to be exalted. Psalm 46 says, “God is our refuge and strength, and ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the sea, though its waters roar and foam…Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
We covet your continued prayer for the Philippines and South East Asia. There are two more major typhoons headed directly for us. The water ways are full and garbage litters the streets and drains. Any more water on us right now will send us quickly back into flooding. I know this storm that wreaked havoc on us went on to Vietnam and Laos. I’m sure they are in states of emergency as well, though more prepared than we were. The needs here are great, but none greater than Christ’s love. May God be glorified in all we do in His name.
All for Jesus,
~Linda