The trip to Leyte was about 1,000 Kilometers from our home in Antipolo City. We left at 5 am on Dec. 20th. We arrived at the Matnog Ferry Port at about noon on Dec. 21st. It took about 4 hours for the 1 hour ferry ride. The truck was happy to rest and so was I. We arrived in Allen, Samar at about 5 pm and continued to drive the construction-riddled, un-lit, blind curving, uphill, downhill road. And those were the best parts. We averaged less than 25 mph on the trip and were so happy to arrive at about 1 am on Dec. 22nd. There was no electricity, so we arrived to a flashlight escort and a candlelit dinner waiting for us. My back and neck pain was excruciating, but it was INCREDIBLE to be there!!! The new roof/rafters were installed (without a ceiling yet) and there were several water leaks, but it made for a great shelter. W.O.W.'s 11 foot truck filled Grace Baptist Church with 300 Supply kits which included: rice, bottles of water, canned meat, sleeping mats, towels, sheets, flashlights, crackers, toothpaste, toothbrushes and lots of other cool stuff that they really needed. We also brought Clothes, Toms shoes, Gallons of Drinking water, Ceramic water filters, solar flashlights/ cell phone chargers, Manna Packs & Soup Mix, rolls of tarpulin for roof repairs and much of our audio/video and cooking equipment. The members of the church went to work shopping through our clothes and supplies and soon began began to plan how they would be preparing meals for the neighborhood. If you are like the Beaver's, you get excited to go to a hotel and get the little complimentary bottles of soap/shampoo. Imagine that excitement multiplied by 100. These people were like piranhas on a floating carcass. Most, if not all of the supply trucks did not get past Tacloban City, so they had been going without these items for over a month. Few things make me happier than being able to make others happy. I was told that I was an "answer to prayers" and I answered I did not answer them..."I'm just the delivery man for your prayers". God's people answered the call for all of the supplies and the funds to make this work . If it was not for generous donors, I would have been at home without the opportunity to GO. How is your over working ladies? I'm taking nothing away from the American mom, a true superhero. But here a cook has to be an arsonist, a firefighter and a chef along with the ability to cook with garden tools. After they got their needed supplies to their shelters, they were back cooking for a neighboring barangay kids. They cooked over 10 gallons of vitamin fortified "lugaw", which is the "Texas chili of the Philippines" or the "Clam Chowda" if you are from the east coast. It filled a 200+ bellies that had not had a hot meal in weeks. By the time I headed back, they had fed and ministered to 300+ more Jaro citizens. The most difficult thing to see in this disaster area was the mass graves. I captured a photo of this homemade tombstone where many families had been buried at a grassy intersection. It is hard to fathom the whole branch of a family tree being torn off at one time, in one place and during a single event. This was one of many sites like this. I have to just ask God: "Allow me to accept Your will, even when I do not understand it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else. I drove by this collapsed building almost every day while I was in Leyte. This was newly constructed and was a storm shelter for several hundred people who perished when the walls came down during the storm. The sustained winds were almost 200 mph for over 4 hours and gusts reaching 235 mph. After 20+ years as a first responder, this is devastation that I have never imagined. I'm sure that a politician's name was emblazoned across the front of this building taking credit for it, in all it's glory. Well he/she claim it now? I have 100's of pictures of the unbelievable devastation and even more pictures of the awesome and abundant blessings that were shared during my trip. Grace Baptist Church will continue to share the blessings of hot food and clean drinking water for weeks to come thanks to God's people. So how did W.O.W. end up in Jaro, Leyte when the whole world only knows of Tacloban City? We were commissioned by University Baptist Church in Houston (Clear Lake) Texas. One of the members there was related to someone that was in Jaro. She contacted us through the church and asked us to check on her family, since she had not heard from them since the storm. We finally contacted them and chose that location because they had not been receiving any aid. Most of the islands population is in Tacloban City. The longest bridge in the country connects the islands, so most of the supplies don't go past "the city gates". I cannot begin to thank enough, the people who made this trip possible. Jaro was very happy to see us, but I was more blessed than they will ever know.
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AuthorThai and I came to the Philippines in August of 2012 to work with the kids here. Archives
October 2017
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