Operation Haiyan Shelter

Here are some of the pictures from the relief project MBI coordinated. We bagged and delivered 500 sacks of food containing noodles, sardines, and 2 kilos of rice to Isabel, Leyte. The youth at New Life Ozamis gathered to put together the bags.

 

It was hard work!

Truck all packed and ready to go



We waited at the rinky dinky port in Cebu for a ferry to Leyte from 4am until 1pm

but at least we got to see this awesome sunrise!

This is Phil. He was the body-guard, muscle-strength, and teddy-bear of the team

This little boy was walking around collecting bottle caps from the floor of the port

My hunk of an uncle, and also the pastor at New Life



Many of the passengers on the ferry were residents of Leyte traveling back home from

the city for food, medicine, and other needs.

 

We arrived in Leyte three weeks after the typhoon hit and many homes, especially the roofs of buildings still standing, had started to be reconstructed. There was still no power, running water for only limited hours during the morning, and no government aid there to assist with the recovery.

Little baby waiting for food





 

Homes lay wasted everywhere

 



We went throughout the village stopping at various places to distribute the food.

A home almost finished being reconstructed

Holy wind force- it knocked down these trees like bowling pins

This make-shift shelter of rice sacks protected one family from the weather for three weeks

Another temporary shelter

Two young boys sitting with the remnants of their house

Tree-tops and livestock- gone

I look so grumpy! I wasn't...



Virginia, a woman who has been blind all her life, was sitting in the midst of her

home that had collapsed around her during the storm.



 There aren't words to express what it's like to enter into someone's suffering in such a close and personal way. Virginia told us that we had been sent by God to bless her, but we feel that she was the one sent to touch our hearts by her faith and courage.

The unstoppable three plus Melvin James, otherwise known as Pastor MJ

Mad skillz

 These kids listened with their parents as I explained to the

village why we had come and how we were able to. 

Each family also received four sheets of galvanized iron sheets to rebuild their homes

My bootiful sister and the primary photographer.

The experience in Leyte was challenging, deeply rewarding, and absolutely unforgettable. It was heartbreaking to see the suffering and loss of people who already lived with so little, but simultaneously inspiring to see them support one another and find their hope in a time of great need.
Pastor MJ, whose family is from Leyte and was displaced by the storm, and I shared a conversation while waiting for the ferry in Cebu that has lingered in my mind. He told me his discovery that a person's truest beliefs are revealed and put to the test in desperate times and in the midst of trouble. He expressed his thanksgiving and pride for his family that believes in a God who sustains them and gives them unshakable purpose in life even despite their situation. He then shared based upon his personal experience and what he has witnessed in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda what he has truly found to be the three most important survival skills one can possess: "faith, hope, and love... and the greatest of these is love." These are what have separated those in utter despair from those who are able to cling to their joy and have not allowed it to wash away with everything else they owned in this world. Faith, hope, and love.

 

Happy non-Turkey Day!

It's Thanksgiving!!!!!!!! We are celebrating this American holiday tonight in the smoldering heat in a tiny house with dozens of people, while my family in Virginia will be spending their holiday in a tiny cabin in the freezing cold mountains. It is bittersweet not being there with them. My sister and I have a big menu of classic Thanksgiving dishes that we're preparing for dinner tonight for the family and boarders at my uncle's house. Which means the girls who usually cook will enjoy free entertainment (again) watching us sweat and scramble trying to figure out their tiny kitchen only equipped with the essentials- a couple gas burners, a sink, and a counter.

 

 

Anyway I haven't posted any pictures because I'm not a good blogger, but here are a few that I pulled from the handful of pictures we've uploaded to the computer.

 

Mangosteen- the new not-so-new super fruit that everyone is crazy about back home right now.

It is actually very yummy.

 

 

But it feels and kinda looks like a brain on the inside.... this picture makes it look less slimy than it really is. (And that's my beautiful mama holding it open)

This is Kristi-Faith. She's four. She's the daughter of a young pastor and his wife that live in a remote village -literally in the bush- about half an hour from Ozamis City. They are so excited because they are finally going to have a church building to meet in with their small congregation. Earlier this year, two of their original five children died inexplicably in the middle of the night. They are still committed to doing the work they feel called to- pastoring their people, giving Help and Hope in every way their sweet family can. Isn't she just the cutest, purdiest thing?

 

 

 And this is me inspecting another buko, coconut, outside of their house for bugs in the water.

 

And this is me conquering the coconut...

I'm a pro now

 

 

 

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Without the duty of work or other obligations here, I've had as much free time to spend reading and thinking and reflecting and dreaming as could ever satisfy my appetite, basically. I've also been getting a lot of pressure... from everyone... to dance at different events while here, and- I don't dance anymore. I don't know how many times I've said that sentence just in the time I've been here. And every time I say it, it feels like I'm driving the nails a little deeper into the boards covering that door in my life. I can't and won't go into all the details, because I'm sure it sounds silly when I say that this one issue has been a point of spiritual struggle and revelation in me since I arrived. I'm like having the biggest inward battle I've face in a really long time and it, on the surface, is about something I thought was totally irrelevant and no longer a part of who I am. Well, dozens of journal entries and conversations and countless prayers later,  I was dancing in the pouring rain on a tiny old basketball court on our street when I realized all the reasons why I gave up dancing in the first place. Silly reasons. Blind decisions. Lies that I believed. Buried dreams. And I just decided that day- I'm going to start dancing again.

 

I hope you all have wonderful, delicious Thanksgivings with the ones you love or whoever you may be lucky enough to be with today, and that you discover something new about yourself or them or the world you live in.