LUGAW LIBRE! MAKAONG!
DALI DALI!
MAPASUPA!
LUGAW LIBRE!
[translation: Free lugaw! Bring your own bowl! Hurry hurry! It's hot! Free lugaw!]
Even though its been almost a month, I find myself saying (ok, yelling) these words on a regular basis and with them, the memories comes flooding back. Team Zeal was blessed to have been able to spend 9 days, including Christmas, doing relief work in Tacloban, one of the cities hit hardest by super typhoon Yolanda, which killed over 6,000 Filipinos when it hit on November 8, 2013. The high winds, reaching over 190 mph, coupled with a storm surge that brought waves as high as 30 feet, ravaged the island of Leyte (where Tacloban is located) and left nearly every building damaged.
We arrived almost 6 weeks after the storm hit and the damage was evident as soon we we stepped off the airplane; the airport sustained a heavy amount of damage and the air traffic control tower and terminal didn't have any windows and parts of the roof were still missing. The hundreds of white UN Refugee and UNICEF tents we pasted on our way to the church we worked with served as a subtle reminder of the severity of the situation. Although visually jarring at first, the halved palm trees and pieces of metal and debris that lay warped and twisted in piles along the side of the roads quickly became a normal sight.
What also became normal was the constant buzzing of chainsaws and the sound of hammers hitting nails into fresh pieces of wood, signs of restoration. Tacloban was getting back to life as usual and they were doing it together, as a unified community. I had the privilege of talking with a local named Richard on my first lugaw run. He told me about his experience clinging to the palm trees outside his home as 20 foot waves swept through his community. He was fortunate not to have lost any family members but his neighbors were not so lucky. He thanked me profusely for coming and helping and told me, “We know we can rebuild on our own and we will get on with our lives. But having so many people coming to help us from around the world gives us so much hope- it means more than you know to feel like we Filipinos are important enough for people to put their lives on hold to come love us”.
We encountered the same gratitude and love from everyone we met and had the privilege of serving alongside that week. I am still humbled by the contagious joy that radiated from the Filipinos; in a matter of minutes, their entire lives were flipped upside due to circumstances entirely out of their control. They had every right to be angry and bitter at the hand they had been dealt but instead, they embraced what happened and fought to see joy in the small, seemingly trivial details of their lives. Their joy didn't mask or conceal their pain because they shared this pain and grief openly with us as well. But they chose joy anyway. It was such an incredible blessing to spend Christmas with them, celebrating God's humble entry into a broken world, knowing in a profoundly new way why we proclaim "Joy to the world, the Lord has come!"
————- ———— ————
Here are a few of the snapshots that will forever be engrained in my memory that I wanted to share;
Kids running at the white truck we drove, an assortment of cups and containers waving in their hands, smiles glued to their faces as they yelled “Lugaw lugaw!” back at us and giggled like banshees.
A little boy in a Spiderman shirt peering up at me as I scooped lugaw into his cup with the brown eyes that told a story of sorrow and strength that would never be translated.
A woman, whose house laid in shambles, running back inside to get plastic containers to give to a family of 6 strangers who pulled up on a motorcycle wanting lugaw. What little she had, she freely gave with such joy, knowing she would never get those containers back.
Belting out Justin Beiber’s greatest hits with the kids at the waterfront as we dish out lugaw and swimming with them in the ocean afterwards
Unintentionally initiating a dance off competition with people across the highway where the Wobble was the clear favorite and cause for much laughter
Talking with a woman from Seattle who works for Starbucks in Federal Way who had come to visit family for the holidays 2 days before the typhoon struck, having no idea that this vacation would be anything but restful
Pulling up and parking along a two-lane highway, entirely unconvinced that anyone lived in the surrounding area, but proved wrong within seconds as people come streaming out of the woodwork for lugaw
Meeting Russell, a joy filled 12 year old pictured above, who lost his mother and father in the typhoon and ended our conservation about his experience with "But God is in control and I trust Him"
Singing Christmas carols with the kids while we served lugaw, always asking for song requests and only ever getting "12 days of Christmas" (so much vocal stamina was gained!)
It only took a few days for Tacloban to steal a piece of my heart. THANK YOU to all of you who made our trip possible – for your prayers and financial donations. God did and is continuing to do incredible things in the Philippines and it was such a privilege to have been able to witness His movements there 🙂
