A couple of weeks ago, the largest typhoon in the history of the world hit the island nation of the Philippines. It hit land during the end of our first week here.
My team was prepared to receive the worst of the storm’s wind and rain, but at some point in the night, the typhoon shifted paths and veered away from our island towards Tacloban. When my team and I walked out into our village the morning after the typhoon, we saw tree branches flung into the roads and pathways and water was still draining down the mountainside. But for the most part, everyone was okay, there was little damage done to properties, and by the end of the day all the debris had been swept aside. Life went on as normal.
(photo from Andi Moore)
Meanwhile, other teams on my squad were located much closer to areas that did receive the worst of the storm. Teams in Manila got to help sort the thousands of donations that flooded in from around the world. Some got to greet refugees at the airport and others even got to fly to Tacloban and actually be in the villages that were most damaged by the typhoon. They were right up in the mess, actually getting to do something helpful.
I felt pretty helpless being so close to such a disaster, so willing to help, and yet so completely unable to. It’s comparable to living in Texas after Hurricane Katrina hit – I wanted so badly to drop everything and go help, but despite my enthusiasm, it just couldn’t happen.
(photo from Marianne Cayce)
So I talked to our contact and tried to arrange a day-trip across the island to a place that was more affected by the storm. It was no Tacloban, but this other village was more affected than our own. But on the evening before the trip was scheduled, I sat down with our contact and talked about it. We decided, after prayer and consideration, that the trip wasn’t worth it. Four hours of driving (one way) only for a few hours of work just wasn’t a good use of our time and money. So instead, I asked our contact to connect us with a local family that could use our help.
On Thursday, almost two weeks after the typhoon, we went with the pastor to the house of a family from the church. We hiked thirty minutes up the steep mountainside, crossing the river and walking down thick jungle paths, to their humble bamboo hut that sits on the edge of the mountain and overlooks the valley and coastline below.
Maribeth, the mother of the house, works part time at the church cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors. She has seven children and her husband works, when he can, as a carpenter down in the valley. They are extremely, extremely poor and are pretty far excluded from access to things like medicine, schools, grocery stores, and generally anything that you and I might call “necessary”. When the pastor asked them how we could help, they pointed to the foundation of their hut and said they could use a cement floor instead of just a crumbling dirt one.
So that afternoon, my team and I spent two hours hauling bags of sand from the river up the mountain to their home. I swear those bags weighed at least forty pounds, but I swung them over my shoulders and practically crawled up the 80-degree incline. My thighs and calves burned with each step and my toes gripped my wet Chacos as best they could, making me feel like I would fall backwards down the hill for most of the climb.
Up and down for two hours we carried bags of sand to the house while Maribeth’s husband and the pastor mixed cement then laid it out. Just as I thought my legs could handle it no longer, they finished the foundation so I collapsed onto a bench and let the breeze cool me off. I felt so exhausted, but so extremely accomplished and glad that I could help. It would’ve taken the two of them all day at least to haul all that sand.
(photo from Brent Acker)
When I saw Maribeth at the church earlier that day and someone told her what my team was planning to do, she broke down and started sobbing. I’m talking snotty, shaky, weepy sobs from somewhere really deep in her heart. I walked up and pulled her thin, small body into my arms and rested my chin on the very top of her head. She just kept saying, “Thank you so much,” and I just kept saying, “It is so my pleasure.”
So maybe I didn’t get to do typhoon relief like I wanted to (or even felt obligated to do). It still kind of sucks to be so close yet so far. But moments like the one with Maribeth sobbing into my chest are the reason why I do this. These are the moments that make this whole year – all the good and bad and ugly parts included – so worth it.
Sometimes we can’t do all that we wanted. We can’t help in the ways we wish we could, we can’t be everywhere and do everything, no matter how willing we are. But all the Lord really asks of us is to have a willing heart. And if we just try to do what we can with what we have where we are, that, my friends, is absolutely enough.
