Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Raindrops keep falling on my head....

Map of the Philippines
The Philippines is an island group consisting of over 7,000 islands. It is an island group that has known its fair share of natural disasters. In 2009 Typhoon Ondoy meandered across the northern part of Luzon Island. It left hundreds of thousands of people homeless in need. The rains over the last week plus have already surpassed the amount of rain that fell during that time. As of this morning 504 mm (about 20 inches) of rain has fallen.

One of the individuals that we associate with is a stake president. He was able to make it into work this morning and brought sacks full of clothing that needed to be washed and dried from people from his stake. He said that 3 of the meeting houses in his stake were underwater. At one of his other chapels about 300 people were their using it as a shelter.

Yesterday and today the senior missionaries who work in the humanitarian department are busy on the phones. They are getting information from local leaders as well as trying to confirm what they learn through another source, most common is one of the television stations. A lot of effort is being done to try and help efficiently and as quick as possible.

Sister Jackson (l) and Sister French sorting clothes
 Yesterday, Tuesday, afternoon about 24 senior missionaries and younger missionaries (the young sisters have been displaced from their homes. That is the bad news...the good news is that they now have a swimming pool on their first floor.) were sent out to work at a warehouse to put together food and clothing supplies to be sent to those who have been effected by the flooding. It was a drop in the bucket but one drop at a time still fills the bucket.

Yesterday afternoon about 20+ senior missionaries and younger missionaries were sent out to assist a local charitable foundation in sorting and packing clothing and food that was to be sent  to areas in need. The foundation is the charitable arm of television station located in Manila referred to as GMA.
President Delamare (foreground), displaced Sister missionaries
Sister Delamare, Sister French

(L to R) Elder Bell, Elder Fleming, President Delamare 
Arnold Ziffel welcoming us to the neighborhood
Raising the power lines to let the truck into the warehouse area
 It was a very busy but productive afternoon. We sorted out various clothing and then packed them into plastic bags. The amount of clothing that we were packing is enough just to get them by for a short period of time. The food is the same way. In the food packages were sardines, noodles, rice and a few other items. The total time that we were at the warehouse was about 5 hours or so.

Following the warehouse we proceeded back to the PAO (Philippines Area Office). The sun goes down about 6:30 and so the travel home was in the dark. With the amount of rain that we had it is tough to distinguish pot-holes from just standing water. We found out the hard way as we were driving back and found a nice size pot-hole that flattened a rear tire. As soon as we pulled over, we were in a caravan with two other vans, we were inundated with local people offering to help in changing the tire. The police showed up very quickly as well. Needless to say the tire was changed in a rather quick manner. As the tire was changed the local police captain was talking with some of the missionaries. He was told we were trying to get back to the PAO. He offered to have one of his police cars give us an escort back to the building. That is riding in style!

Today the activity is focused around putting together kits to be distributed to areas in need. The process has been to determine what goes into a kit, cost, then the logistics in putting the kits together. Fortunately next to the PAO is the MTC for the Pacific area and the PAO also has a large basement garage which has been used before as a staging area. Tomorrow and Friday will be spent putting the kits together....

jsf
Name of Foundation sponsoring the distribution

Receiving instruction
Sorting clothes begins

Sorting clothes- (L-R) Sister Hadlock, Sister and Elder Bell
(backs toward camera)



Sorting clothes

Beginning of putting the food packages together


Bagging rice


Unloading rice. These are 50 kg sacks

Finished sacks with clothes



Improvised rain hat

Elder and Sister French



Missionaries with our police escort outside of the Manila Temple



Sister French with local tire changing crew, local police captain
William, and Sister Hadlock







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