This past week was one of the hardest and best weeks of my life. We saw devastation and tragedy along with the loving hand and favor of our Lord. 
(our team + baby A-aron)
After multiple divine appointments and feeling the Lord’s favor on our trip, we had a team of 6 willing to go do relief work in Dulag. Dulag is a city 35km south of Tacloban that had not yet seen much AID, especially medical.
Finally on Sunday at midnight, the four nurses headed to the airport for our 4am flight to Cebu to meet the other 2 on the team.
We only had enough supplies to fill our packs without the extravagant overweight charge of airlines. We knew realistically if the trauma was as expected our supplies would only last a few hours.
We knew this is what the Lord had called us to, so we prayed for a bread and fish style multiplication of our supplies and trusted it would happen.
We arrived in Cebu at 7am with circles under our eyes. We were exhausted, we had been awake since 5 am the day before.
We prayed for a refreshed body and that is just what we got. Becky and Lalyn, the ladies that work with Wipe Every Tear, picked us up and took us to a house where we could rest.
(Kelsey and I with the family in Cebu)
We had all day in Cebu to get our supplies together before catching the overnight boat to Leyte.
The 6 of us, 4 nurses + Wipe Every Tear ladies, split up. 3 of us went to get food and the other 3 went to the Red cross to see if we could get medical supplies.
We knew the chances of getting medical supplies were slim because we had already asked the Manila red cross and they said no because they only give supplies to their teams.
So, while 3 of them were at red cross, 3 of us went to a wholesale food place and got enough rice, noodles, and other supplies to feed over 1,000 families.
We had boxes galore as we were checking out at 645p and our boat was supposed to leave at 8p. Stressed is an understatement of how we felt.
If you know the Philippines, it take an hr just to get 10 miles because the traffic is so terrible. We were praying for the Lords mercy over this situation.
Mak, a filipino nurse, and I packed Becky’s friends tiny car as full as we could and hopped in to go to the dock. We left Lalyn behind with the rest of the boxes. She had to wait for another ride because not even half of the boxes would fit into the first car.
When Mak and I arrived it was around 735 and we found the rest of our crew, with loads of boxes of medical supplies.
(the boxes from the red cross)
They were able to get supplies from the Red Cross.
They said that when they arrived at the Red cross, the people there said no way. Kelsey was moved to prayer and just interceded while the other 2 talked Tagalog to the director.
After they continued to say no to the girls, all the sudden a man walked in and said they couldn’t get the supplies where they needed to go.
Then the director looked at the girls and said fine, take WHATEVER YOU WANT. WHAT? Not only did they let us use their supplies, they gave the girls full access to the supplies and they were able to grab everything we needed. NOW THAT IS THE LORDS FAVOR.
Okay, so back to the dock. By the time 3 of us got through all the lines and to our boat it was 755. The boat was to leave at 8 and 1 of our girls wasn’t even at the doc. She was still in traffic.
We continued to pray for the Lord’s favor on our situation.
We climbed the little ladder at the front of the boat to talk to the captain. We pleaded with him to PLEASE hold the 500+ passenger boat for the rest of our team.
We HAD to catch this boat out or we would have been stuck in Cebu for another 24hrs. With the Lords mercy, the captain agreed and held the boat for us.
Finally around 9p the rest of the girls arrived with our boxes and we were off to Leyte.
(the boat was filled with our boxes–ha!)
This is all us just trying to get to the island, once we got to the island the Lord continued to move in amazing ways. I could write on it for days… but I will write more about the trauma we saw and the healings we saw tomorrow.
